C&C games minimize on startup

I have the "C&C Ultimate Collection"  and I can't play ANY of the games.  When I start one, for example GNERALS / ZERO HOUR  I get a window that has GENERALS and also GENERALS ZERO HOUR box art; I click on Generals and the game opening spalshscreen is fullscreen for half a second then minimizes to the taskbar; clicking the game in the taskbar, it pops open for half a second and then minimizes again.  Can't  bring it fullscreen no matter what I do. Tried some "hold right ALT and ENTER keys at the same time" trick, that didn't work. I put    -win  at the end of the startup shortcut and the game would open in a window, but it can't be played that way - when you move your cursor to the limit of the screen, instead of navigating you aroun the cursor just sails off the window altogether and onto the Windows desktop.

Windows 7 - 64 / i7-920 @ 4 GHz, 12 GB DDR3, 512 GB SSD, Geforce GTX770, Samsung 305 30 inch monitor up to 2560 x 1600.

This happens for C&C Red Alert, C&C Red Alert 2, C&C Red Alert Yuri's Revenge, C&C Generals and C&C Generals Zero Hour.  C&C Tiberium Wars and C&C Kane's Wrath play OK.

This is driving me crazy.  I think it has something to do with resolution- I tried setting my display to all the resolutions it's capable of from 1024 x 768 through to 2560 x 1600 and then tried starting the game with video set at that resolution, and the games all behaved the same way- they would start and then minimize.