I've tried resizing the window but I can't drag the top handle. This is very annoying as I want to get rid of the page border shadow - I'm new to the forum (not Inkscape though) so be nice! See the attached image below for a clearer explanation.

Update to the current version:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... t_bugfixes

(uninstall, then reinstall the new one from https://inkscape.org/releases)

If there's some reason that you don't want to upgrade, there is a way to see it all. If you dock the Document Properties dialog, you will be able to scroll to see the whole thing.

You probably don't want to keep it docked, because it's so big, but at least you can access those options.

Do you need instructions for docking?

Deleting your default file while inkscape is not open should reset the windows size and location - at least it used to. Depending on your os that file is found in different locations