“Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them” not working with every application with touchpad on Windows 10

In Windows 10, under Settings > Devices > Mouse & Touchpad, I have the «Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them» turned ON.

Using a USB mouse, this setting works as expected — it scrolls the content of whatever application window the mouse is currently hovering over, regardless of whether the window is «active» or «inactive».

When I use my laptop’s touchpad, this setting only works when the active window belongs to particular applications (e.g. Firefox, Libre Office Suite). The feature does not work for other applications (e.g. Microsoft OneNote 2016, Sumatra PDF). That is, select the OneNote window, and then hover over the Firefox window, and scrolling on the touchpad will not switch to Firefox, but continue to scroll the OneNote window.

I have spent an hour searching through similar posts on superuser, and while some titles seem like my same issue, once I have read the posts and solutions in detail, they are not the same issue as the problem I am facing. I’ve also searched more broadly on the Internet without success.

1 Answer 1

The reason is because inactive scrolling is only designed for a usb mouse, not the trackpad. I have spent months researching this problem. There are some applications that will support inactive scrolling for the trackpad, but not all of them do as you have noticed. However, the good news is that there is a way to fool the computer into thinking your trackpad is a mouse. What you want to do is download «two finger scroll by mac hater». Here is the link: https://github.com/awahlig/two-finger-scroll. Once you install it, you may want to open up your synaptic trackpad settings and «disable» the trackpad (to avoid confusion).

Essentially, «two finger scroll by mac hater» will take over and treat your trackpad as a mouse and you will now be able to scroll inactive windows. Please note that if you restart your computer, you may need to launch the app again in order to scroll. You can simply google how to make programs launch on startup and it is really easy. Your computer will now be able to scroll inactive windows with your trackpad. I have done this and it works like a charm. I hope this helps!

«Scroll Inactive Windows When I Hover Over Them» option not working in settings

After updating the family’s laptop from Windows 8 (not 8.1) to Windows 10 (via the media tool), this option is way too fast, so fast that Windows cannot open from the taskbar.

For some reason, the scroll windows thing was in Windows 8, even though it wasn’t implemented then.

This is very irritating, and not the first laptop that this option hasn’t worked on

Replies (10) 

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

We regret the inconvenience caused to you. We will be glad to assist you with this issue.

Make sure that this feature is enabled on your system. If it not enabled follow the below steps to make it enable:

1. Go to the desktop and tap on Start menu to look for Settings option and click the same.
2. Then click Devices category on the settings window.
3. In the left pane, choose the Mouse & Trackpad option. Now, you will see the text
4. Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them on the right side of the screen.
5. To enabled it, just swipe the slider to ON.

Now check for the issue. If it still persists check with a new user account. Follow the below steps:

1. In search type User Account.
2. Select manage another account.
3. Select Add a new user in this PC account.
4. Click on Add someone else to this PC and follow the onscreen instructions.

Keep us posted if you face any issues on windows in future. We will be glad to help you.

Mouse scroll inactive windows doesn’t work

Hi all, since my last Windows Update, I’ve found my «scroll inactive windows when I hover over them» function doesn’s work on my laptop. I checked the Settings, and the function is «On». I tried to turn it off and on and reboot my laptop several times, but nothing works.

I’m wondering is there anyone else has the same problem? How did you solve it. I think this scroll inactive windows function is one of the most fantastic functions in Win10, really want to fix it!

Replies (9) 

To help resolve your concern, we’d like you insert a different mouse to your laptop and see if the same behavior occurs. Vice versa, if you have another available PC or laptop, kindly insert the mouse you’re referring to and let’s see if the same issue occurs.

Looking forward to your response.

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To help resolve your concern, we’d like you insert a different mouse to your laptop and see if the same behavior occurs. Vice versa, if you have another available PC or laptop, kindly insert the mouse you’re referring to and let’s see if the same issue occurs.

Looking forward to your response.

Hi, I’ve tried my original Dell mouse (my laptop is Dell) and an alternative Microsoft mouse, but it doesn’t help to solve the problem. I don’t have another Win10 device (all my other devices are win 7), so I’m not able to have a controlled double-check.

Also, I tried to uninstall my latest windows updates, but the problem is still there. Any other potential solution for it?

how to turn off ‘scroll inactive windows when I hover over them’ ?

I have gone to settings, devices, mouse. the setting for this feature is ‘off’. However it is not turned off. this feature makes my computer almost unusable, I cannot bear it. I went into the registry , it is also shown as off (‘0’). Please advise.

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

Replies (7) 

This can be due to software conflicts on your device. To better understand your concern, we’d like to know the following:

• The last activities performed on your device prior to your concern.
• If you’ve experienced your concern in all programs on your device.
• The version of Windows 10 that you’re using on your device. To check this, you can perform the steps posted on this link.

In the meantime, we’d recommend performing a clean boot in Windows to isolate software conflicts on your device. To do this, you can perform the steps posted on this link. Once you’re done, you’d need to revert the clean boot environment. To do this, check the How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting section of the link.

We look forward to your response.

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Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

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Hello Jelu / Microsft support

The answers to your questions are:

Last activities performed prior to my concern: all activities. Any time I have more than one window open I have a problem. So that is, most of the time.

Concerns occurring in which programs: all programs. Every one. All office suite programs plus Google, Adobe applications (particularly difficult to cope with as I always have several windows open in Photoshop or Illustrator – now these programs have become very difficult to use). eg today I tried to print a document. The print dialogue box was open but I accidentally allowed the mouse to hover over the document, which then became ‘active’ (ie on top) but it was not actually active because the print dialogue box was open but now hidden behind the document window. The only way I could get to the print dialogue box was through task manager.

Windows version: Windows 10 Pro Ver. 1703 OS build 15063.413, 64-bit

Problem started earlier this year, prior to that I could select windows by clicking and they did not become active by hovering. the change must have happened after a Windows update but I can’t say which one as I do not get notifications that an update is pending.

It seems I have no choice but to perform the clean boot to see if it finds the problem. This process will be very time consuming and may not be successful. I am also concerned it may create additional problems. However this feature (activate windows by hovering) has rendered my computer very difficult to use and drives me nuts on a daily basis.

Disable Scrolling Inactive Windows In Windows 10

By default, you can scroll inactive windows opened on the Desktop in Windows 10. This behavior can be annoying for some users, because they can accidentally scroll the wrong window’s contents and not realize it. Here is how to disable the Scroll Inactive Windows feature in Windows 10.

Some people find this feature very useful. Others do not like it when they inadvertently scroll an inactive window’s contents which is open in the background. If it is a user interface or input form with a combo box (dropdown list), accidental scrolling could change some option. If you are not happy with the default scroll behavior of Windows 10, here is how to change it.

To disable scrolling inactive windows in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Go to the following page: Devices — Mouse.
   
3. On the right, see the option under Mouse named Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them.
4. Disable this option Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them and you are done.

If you need to change this option with a Registry tweak, here is how it can be done.

1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Go to the following registry key:
3. Change the 32-bit DWORD value named MouseWheelRouting to 0. If you don’t have such a value, then just create it.Note: Even if you are running the 64-bit Windows 10 version, you need to use a 32-bit DWORD as the value type.
4. Now, sign out from your user account and sign in again.

To restore the default behavior, you need to set the MouseWheelRouting value to 2. Again, you’ll need to sign out for the changes to take effect.

For your convenience, I prepared ready-to-use Registry files. You can download them below.

The undo tweak is included.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

1 thought on “ Disable Scrolling Inactive Windows In Windows 10 ”

Excel is not obeying to that command, it is only Excel, it works with everything else