My windows on my Xubuntu are not acting right. The minimize/maximize/close buttons are not there at the top right. I still have the "File Edit..." etc but I can't grab and move the window. Under the menu Settings -> Window Manager nothing happens which makes me think the Window Manager is dead or sick.

I reinstalled a scattershot of XFCE packages but the problem is still there. I didn't make any recent changes to anything close to these settings so....

What packages can I reinstall? or where can I look to see what controls my window behavior?

Do you have xfwm4 installed?

Yes, I'm pretty sure I do. I just installed the freshest Xubuntu about 3 weeks ago and it has worked fine until this morning.

Try entering "xfwm4" in a terminal.

I get:

(xfwm:5420): gtk warning** cannot open display;

but I was in another terminal (ctrl-alt-f4). I will try it here but I have to close the browser... I can only have one window open at a time right now!!!

"warning - another window manager is already running"

when typed here in tty7

I did it. I typed:

xfwm4 --replace

and everything is working. But did that just replace for this session? I'd like it to work all the time,of course,so I am going to log out/in and see if that still works. What did that do?

Okay, it still works after re-booting.

Just for my own education,what did that do to type xfwm4 --replace?

It stopped the existing window manager (I have no idea what it could have been, since you say you had no window borders) and started xfwm4 (Xfce's window manager).