Windows 7 - Mouse Hover Makes Window Active - Enable

**gabeforprez**

How to Activate a Window by Hovering Over it with the Mouse Pointer

Information

This will allow you to Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse pointer for a second to make it easier to switch between open windows.

hello all.
I've been reading this great forum passively for a short while now, its quite the wonderful resource.
what i could not find, though, was information on how to focus on windows by simply hovering over them with the mouse.

Back in XP, you could enable this with Tweak UI, which called it X-mouse.
It was great, i didn't have to click on a window to work in it.
but how to enable this in 7?

OPTION #1
As this article points out, you can switch windows by hovering if you enable it through:
Control Panel> Ease of Access> Change How Your Mouse Works
scroll down, check box "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse"
this method raises windows to the front when you hover over them.

OPTION #2
For a true X-mouse experience, you could use this third party software TXMouse:
True X-Mouse Gizmo for Windows
if you are familiar with Linux x-mouse behaviour, you might appreciate its other functions.

OPTION #3
If you don't need those extra functions, you can make a couple swift changes in the registry and achieve the same effect:
[Thanks to original commenter unpaidbill for this particular option]

Step #1:
Open regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit UserPreferenceMask value to be 9F 3E 07 80 12 00 00 00
[You should only have to modify the first pair]

Step #2:
Also in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit ActiveWndTrkTimeout, change 'Base' to Decimal and put in 150 as the 'Value Data'

[this value is time in milliseconds that it takes for the focus to change.
to avoid some issues with the taskbar I recommended using a value like 150 or so,
but if you'd like to have a different delay before the window loses focus, set it to whatever you like.]

Step #3:
Log off and log back in

Information

(Added by John Galt)

Here is the registry key to do that if you don't want to edit the registry yourself. Hover window select.reg

Here is the registry key to restore the default values. Default Windows hover.reg

This results in windows being active (but not being raised) when you hover over them.

Related Tutorials

**andythecurefan** · 05-07-2009

Option #1 seems the simplest, why would people even bother with Option #3?

Thanks for the tutorial, just tried it out and now I know what you mean about "hovering makes window active".

skzap · 05-07-2009

option 3 rocks

great job

**gabeforprez** · 05-07-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by andythecurefan

Option #1 seems the simplest, why would people even bother with Option #3?

so that you can type and scroll in a window that is not in the foreground.
option 1 brings the windows forward, while option 3 does not.
its convenient that way, but you have to be aware of where your mouse is on the screen.

Quote: Originally Posted by skzap

option 3 rocks

great job

thanks skzap.
I wanted to make a .reg file so that you didn't have to edit the registry if you didn't want to, but i don't know how lol.

can anyone help me to that end?
then there can be an Undo .reg file as well

[which reminds me, I didn't make a backup of those registry values lol. can someone provide the original values?]

**Mark** · 05-07-2009

Here you go, they are both in Reg files. By the way I really like option 3, it now works just how I always thought it should, good job.

Hover window select.reg

Default Windows hover.reg

I edited the files to include only the changes from gabeforprez's initial post, and they are exactly as he mentions.

The default restores the default values to those 2 keys as they normally appear in Windows, and the Hover changes the values of those two keys only to the values suggested by gabe. -johnlgalt

skzap · 05-07-2009

in regedit you have an export option, then open the created file with notepad and remove the useless lines.

I don't have the original either.

The delay time is in millisec? I need to change it, 0 millisecs causes some minor annoyances here

**gabeforprez** · 05-07-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr GRiM

Here you go, they are both in Reg files. By the way I really like option 3, it now works just how I always thought it should, good job.

Attachment 10005

Attachment 10006

Yes! Exactly!
thank you a bunch Mr GRiM!

**gabeforprez** · 05-07-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by skzap

The delay time is in millisec? I need to change it, 0 millisecs causes some minor annoyances here

actually a slight delay would be nice.
knowing that the option is there is nice too.

**Nikolay** · 05-07-2009

Quote:

Step #2:
Also in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit ActiveWndTrkTimeout, change 'Base' to Decimal and put in 0 as the 'Value Data'

When I change the Base to Decimal, it reverts back to hex when I close the window out. I tried the .reg file that grim has provided but it also did not work, yes I did log off.

Edit: Is it supposed to deselect the last open window and when you move the cursor it goes back? I was hoping it would open the window you hover over. Also, why did my wallpaper disappear when I logged back in?

Edit 2: Oohhh I understand now. Sorry, my head wasn't working.

**Mark** · 05-07-2009

Quote: Originally Posted by Nikolay

When I change the Base to Decimal, it reverts back to hex when I close the window out. I tried the .reg file that grim has provided but it also did not work, yes I did log off.

Yeah my value was already set to 0 for some reason, but as far as it changing back, that's what it is meant to do, you are just changing it to decimal to set the value. What was your original value for the delay gabeforprez?