Windows 7 - issues with Alice 2.0 and 2.2

Update: the issue is screen resolution - my laptop has 1280 x 800; Alice prefers 1024 x 768. Adjusting the resolution took care of the problem.

Neither version of Alice works on my Windows 7 laptop - when I click anything in Alice (such as Add Objects), nothing happens until I click outside the program (on the task bar). When I click in the Alice program again, the screen is refreshed and I can select something else, but have to click the task bar again. Very frustrating. Sometimes, even that does not work and I have to minimize the entire program to the task bar before keyboard inputs are recognized upon maximizing the window again. And sometimes, even THAT does not help - Alice does not respond to any keyboard or mouse inputs.

Help!!