Windower Blues (scaling problem)

[The Stig]

2 laptops

Both use vista premium

Both with Core 2 duos, 2gb ram
1 with GeForce 7400
1 with GeForce 8400

Both are small laptops and to put it basically, both use windower to play FFXI

I don't think the graphics card is the issue here but:

On the 7400 one, the max resolution is 1280x800, and the windower settings is at 640x480 (to make the game run smoother). When I maximize the windower, the graphics of course, stretch, and then you can notice that the graphics blur a bit (to make it smooth)

Likewise, the 8400, same setup, but when the window is maximized, the graphics are very pixelly and choppy, like no smoothing has occured. This occured in Vista (current), but in XP it was OK (which lead me to think the graphics card is out of discussion here). The reason Vista was put back on because XP got screwed over by something and I don't have the XP CD anywhere (with the serial) so instead of looking for it I decided to put Vista on.

I think I'm overlooking something extremely simple here but I'm not sure, if anyone can point out where I can turn this "blurring" effect it would be great. I'm not a graphics-phil (phile?) I don't need it to look perfect, just the blurrying is easier on the eyes and more pleasant overall.

[Noobta]

Did you change the background resolution too? I'm terrible with all this stuff too, but it seems like it could be it.