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How To Disable Windows 10’s Inactive Window Scrolling

Last Updated on December 14, 2019 by admin 11 Comments

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Do you want to enable or disable the built-in inactive window scrolling feature in Windows 10? Not sure how to use the inactive window scrolling feature? In this guide, we will explain how to use the inactive window scrolling feature and how to enable or disable it in Windows 10.

What is the inactive window scrolling feature?

Inactive window scrolling feature was not natively available in previous Windows versions, and users had to use third-party tools to enable inactive window scrolling feature in Windows 7/8.

The inactive window scrolling feature in Windows 10 allows you a scroll an inactive window without clicking on it. That is, the feature enables you to scroll a non-focused window without clicking on it.

Enable or Disable Windows 10 inactive window scrolling

For instance, if you open the Firefox browser first and then open the Notepad program, the previously opened Firefox browser automatically becomes inactive. In previous Windows versions, you had to click on the inactive window (Firefox in this example) to be able to scroll it.

But in Windows 10, you can scroll the inactive window (Firefox here) by just hovering the mouse cursor over it and moving mouse wheel or clicking arrow keys on the keyboard. The advantage of this feature is that you can scroll an inactive window without clicking on it or making it active.

As said before, the inactive window scrolling feature is built into Windows 10 and enabled by default. However, Microsoft has provided an option to turn off the feature to help those users who might find it annoying.

Follow the given below directions to enable or disable the inactive window scrolling feature in Windows 10.

Method 1 of 2

To enable or disable inactive window scrolling via Settings

Step 1: Open the Settings app. There are a couple of ways to open Settings in Windows 10, but you can either click the Settings icon on the left side of the Start menu or use Windows + I hotkey.

Step 2: Navigate to Devices > Mouse page.

Step 4: Finally, turn off the option titled Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them. And if it’s turned off, you can enable the same here.

turn on or off inactive window scrolling feature in Windows 10 pic3

That’s it!

Method 2 of 2

Enable or disable inactive window scrolling via Registry

And if you are unable to find the option, you can use the Registry Editor to enable or disable inactive window scrolling in Windows 10.

Step 1: Open Registry Editor. Type Regedit in Start menu search box and press Enter key. Click Yes button when you see the User Account Control dialog to open Registry Editor.

Step 2: Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: On the right-side, look for MouseWheelRouting, and create one (DWORD (32-bit) Value) if it doesn’t exist.

Enable or Disable Windows 10 inactive window scrolling pic3

Step 4: Lastly, double-click on MouseWheelRouting entry, change its default value to 2 (one) to turn on inactive window scroll, and set the value to 0 (zero) to turn off the feature.

Enable or Disable Windows 10 inactive window scrolling pic4

Do you find the inactive window scroll feature useful?

Filed Under: Windows 10 Tagged: Tips

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Comments

  1. FuckMS says

    April 15, 2021 at 9:39 am

    This the fucking the most useless feature introduced by a brainless idiot!

  2. anzil says

    June 1, 2020 at 9:08 pm

    Thank you

  3. rene says

    March 13, 2019 at 6:27 pm

    “Just remove the remote USB receiver and plug it in again – problem solved. At least with my PC”

    Thank you
    It was starting to drive me crazy.

  4. Ed says

    August 26, 2018 at 10:59 pm

    Niels suggestion worked for me

  5. Jeff says

    June 28, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    in file explorer, i scroll down to view icons. Before I can even get to the bottom of the window, it auto scrolls back to the top. what a pain in the butt!!!!

  6. Niels says

    June 6, 2018 at 3:27 pm

    Just remove the remote USB receiver and plug it in again – problem solved. At least with my PC

  7. Eesa Munir says

    February 17, 2018 at 3:02 am

    Thanks!

  8. James says

    February 14, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    This is too funny. Not only will the start menu scroll (if you can find the the 1/8″ wide invisible (auto- collapsed) scroll bar) and then slide left to the apps list (using mouse wheel) but you may find that the switch does nothing at all to prevent some inactive windows from scrolling when hovered over anyways, even after selecting to turn the “feature” off.

    Completely useless feature on a laptop where they just figured good enough so why bother giving laptop users any option turn it off, since the worst it can do is giving them an accidental distractive What the f was that if a lower window was peeking out the side of another invisible scrollbar – because you still cannot micro manage GUI feature color.

    Thank god today’s softy engineers don’t have to figure out whether square pegs go into the round holes or the other shaped holes.

    Just so all you peeps on your phones don’t have to read comments longer than 147 characters. Yay. See button. Touch button. Get reward. Scratch armpit itch. Eat banana. You Jane. Me Windows 10 engineer.

  9. Joni says

    January 20, 2018 at 3:39 am

    I have had this feature disabled for some time, it still is working. I click on the back button, hit the wheel to scroll down and have surfed half the web. Maybe I do not know what this feature is actually called, but I want it gone, and now!

  10. David says

    July 7, 2016 at 4:24 am

    I followed this whole tutorial and the feature remains disabled. An internal problem of the PC? Any suggestions? Thank you.

  11. neojudgment says

    September 7, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Hi,

    Great ! But if you disable Inactive Window Scrolling you disable Scrolling in Windows Start menu alaso.

    Best regards.

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