If you find changing OS jarring then just stick to one or the other and stop shilly-shallying around!

Herbie

http://tweaklibrary.com/Hardware/Input_Output-Device/20/Enable-Active-Window-Tracking-to-Mouse-Movements/11079/

It's different to the Solaris method because keyboard input always goes to the active/foreground window, but mouse input goes to whichever window the mouse is hovering over. For example, you can have a text editor as the active window and an inactive browser window to the side with the mouse over it. The text editor will take your key presses and the browser window will take your mouse commands when you scroll.

The ubiquity of Windows means you can never truly escape it.

Kettch:

I think that tweak would do something like what Dr Herbie described, which sounds like it could be worse than the default setup. Also, the Windows boxes that I use are mostly lab computers; hacking the registry is not really an option.

tfraser said:

Dr Herbie:

 

It's different to the Solaris method because keyboard input always goes to the active/foreground window, but mouse input goes to whichever window the mouse is hovering over. For example, you can have a text editor as the active window and an inactive browser window to the side with the mouse over it. The text editor will take your key presses and the browser window will take your mouse commands when you scroll.

 

The ubiquity of Windows means you can never truly escape it.

 

Kettch:

 

I think that tweak would do something like what Dr Herbie described, which sounds like it could be worse than the default setup. Also, the Windows boxes that I use are mostly lab computers; hacking the registry is not really an option.

Except it's just as annoying the other way round. I often use the mouse wheel to scroll the active window's document, without the mouse being over that window (I've usually moved it out of the way to avoid the pointer obscuring text etc). The fact that Windows was designed to always work without a mouse (wheras Mac OS has historically required one to function) probably influenced the approach Windows took. I have to say that I personally much prefer it, it seems far more logical and useful to me.

AndyC said:

tfraser said:

*snip*

Except it's just as annoying the other way round. I often use the mouse wheel to scroll the active window's document, without the mouse being over that window (I've usually moved it out of the way to avoid the pointer obscuring text etc). The fact that Windows was designed to always work without a mouse (wheras Mac OS has historically required one to function) probably influenced the approach Windows took. I have to say that I personally much prefer it, it seems far more logical and useful to me.

I can appreciate the usefulness of that scenario as well, but I think there should at least be an option to choose which way you want it to work (Windows 8?). For the kind of work I'm doing, the Mac way is so much more efficient; there is so much less clicking involved.

tfraser said:

AndyC said:

*snip*

I can appreciate the usefulness of that scenario as well, but I think there should at least be an option to choose which way you want it to work (Windows 8?). For the kind of work I'm doing, the Mac way is so much more efficient; there is so much less clicking involved.

...but I think there should at least be an option to choose which way you want it to work (Windows 8?).

You can forget about adding options to future releases of Windows. Historically, the trend has been to provide good defaults and leave it at that.

Window is not a Mac, though Windows and Mac fanboys are constantly trying to make the to OS's identical or slating the other for being archaic, you'd probably find that there is a very good reason why they did this.

RLO said:

Tfraser, I assume that the reason you have this complaint is that you are manually adjusting lab computers in your job environment, and as such you are going to every machine and applying these adjustments?  Hence your complaints about the mouse? 

I'm pretty sure most of the mouse software packages (IntelliPoint, Logitech's SetPoint, etc) let you change this behavior.  Don't think Windows has a built-in option for it though.

BHpaddock said:

RLO said:

*snip*

I'm pretty sure most of the mouse software packages (IntelliPoint, Logitech's SetPoint, etc) let you change this behavior.  Don't think Windows has a built-in option for it though.

The reason I was originally asking was because I was in that situation in my last job.  We discovered the best way to avoid repetitive strain injury going through a lab of unmanaged computers was to use keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse.  You can easily avoid touching the mouse if you know your keyboard shortcuts.  A simple alt + tab brings focus and by using the alt,backspace, arrow keys, and tabs, you can make most pieces of software obey your wants.  On XP it was easy to restart any of the computers by using win+u+r.  Originally using a mouse it would take 45 minutes or more to do work in a lab, and after using keyboard shortcuts it would take about 20 minutes to do the same work. 

Does anybody know whether J2EE apps do the inactive scrolling thing? I would therefore presume yes; alas, my systems are Java-free.

bluescrubbie said:

Try WizMouse: http://www.pcworld.com/article/160061/scroll_inactive_windows_with_wizmouse.html

I finally got around to trying this.

Win-XP could scroll explorer windows with the mouse-wheel, just by pointing at them, while Win-7 requires you focus the windows first... and I found the change to be really annoying, as my brain seems to be hard-wired to XP-mode.

This app seems to do the job and so far no weird stuff encountered, but it does appear to be slightly more expensive on CPU resources.

So when I peek at a window I can scroll up/down without switching to it.

webmonkey said:

What I'd like to see around this is when you hover over a taskbar preview, scroll works on that window.

 

So when I peek at a window I can scroll up/down without switching to it.

Sounds like something you could patent.

webmonkey said:

What I'd like to see around this is when you hover over a taskbar preview, scroll works on that window.

 

So when I peek at a window I can scroll up/down without switching to it.

What I want is for taskbar previews to scroll when they get full instead of switching to a list view.  I'd much rather scroll through 50 previews than try to remember a window's or tab's title.

Seriously, how often do you look at a page title?

SlackmasterK said:

webmonkey said:

*snip*

What I want is for taskbar previews to scroll when they get full instead of switching to a list view.  I'd much rather scroll through 50 previews than try to remember a window's or tab's title.

 

Seriously, how often do you look at a page title?

I think I'd rather they went onto another row and formed a grid.