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Does anyone know how to set focus follows mouse, focus auto-raise, and auto-raise delay in Windows 7?

I've tried Ultimate Windows Tweaker, but that doesn't seem to have any mouse settings.

I found a site Here that shows how to edit the registry to get focus follows mouse and auto-raise, but I'd like to be able to set the delay now.

Ideally there's some software out there - like x-mouse for XP - which lets you control all three without having to edit the registry.

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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To control just having auto-focus and auto-raise, type "change how" in the start menu search, select the "Change how your mouse works" item, and check the checkbox for "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse".

The delay requires reg tweaking (or a third party program), I believe the key is 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\ActiveWndTrkTimeout

If the key doesn't exist, create it as a new DWORD value. Here's the documentation for the key: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957203.aspx. You also need to log out and in for the changes to take effect.

Note that ActiveWndTrackTimeout does not appear to affect auto-focus/auto-raise, while ActiveWndTrkTimeout does.

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  • You shouldn't necessarily be against a reg-tweak. Once you set it how you like it you can export these reg-tweaks to an .reg file, which you can then save in a library folder somewhere. Then, whenever you get a new computer, you can just merge in all these settings/files, and voila! your new computer now works how you like. :)
    – eidylon
    Nov 1, 2009 at 17:27
  • @eidylon Your idea is a good one, but I'm concerned they'll change keys on me.
    – Scott
    Nov 2, 2009 at 15:35
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    I tried that registry entry and it had no effect. Is a restart required?
    – ericslaw
    May 24, 2011 at 23:30
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Change registry setting \\Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse\MouseHoverTime to 2000

See here for more info.

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    This is only for delay on task bark not when switching among windows.
    – tukan
    Nov 22, 2018 at 8:02
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Here (sevenforums) is a posting with three ways to accomplish this.
I am using the third solution because I do not want the active window to be automatically raised, but this is a matter of personal preference.
The second method highlighted there uses a third-party application, which is the most easy to use.

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This entry (http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks/) in sinewalker's lab book looks to be essentially the same as solution number three on sevenforums, as noted above, but includes some extra discussion on specific values for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\UserPreferencesMask

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Screenshot of the main window of X-Mouse Controls, running on Windows 10

When Tweak UI was first discontinued with the release of Windows Vista, I developed X-Mouse Controls so you can enable focus follows mouse, disable auto-raising, adjust the delay without registry edits nor logging out/rebooting.

X-Mouse Controls: Windows utility to enable or disable active window tracking, raising and also the delay in milliseconds. This is known as x-mouse behavior or focus follows mouse.

Works on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003. Might work on other versions as well.

You only need to run it when you want to change the settings (no extra memory usage), free/libre open source, and takes care of the details for you.

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