Windows 10 and Windows 11
I swear I already had an article on fixing Windows 10 but maybe it was Windows 8? I know there is Windows 7.
Time marches on and now we're getting Windows 11 at work, so I have to go through all the fixes again.
Scroll direction AKA Natural Scrolling
Once you get used to Natural on the Mac it seems wrong everywhere else. I remember how shocking it was on the Mac when they switched, then about an hour later it seemed totally "natural" and I understood why they call it that.
The touchpad comes with natural scrolling. They have made it possible to turn the touch pad scroll upside down but not to fix the mouse wheel. Ha. Stupid.
Initially I did the Regedit thing but it's a pain and requires a reboot and I think it gets periodically reverted by the IT management at work.
Using AutoHotKey is better, see https://netninja.com/2011/08/08/natural-scrolling-across-operating-systems/
Install autohotkey
Create a file AutoHotKey.ahk in your Documents folder, and put this in it. Funny thing is that it works splendidly. I don't need to figure out the HID id of the mouse or anything. Sweet. I struggled to figure out which HID device is my mouse, there is only one mouse, but 2 show up in the Device Manager.
; Reverse mouse wheel to be more like OS X
WheelUp::Send {WheelDown}
WheelDown::Send {WheelUp}
; Alt Home sends my password
!Home::Send mysecretpassword
Search results show up for random garbage
I don't want to search for movies when I am looking for a file on my hard drive. I use a browser for finding movies.
Windows 10: Fixing it requires a REGISTRY EDIT!!? Hahahahahahaha Microsoft answer Some random web page.
Getting rid of OneDrive on Windows 10
It's a registry thing. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-remove-onedrive-file-explorer-windows-10
This is not an issue at work, they do this for us.
Home drive is synced to OneDrive by default
Change your home directory to move it out of OneDrive. (At home only!)
Disconnect your account from Microsoft.
- Click on "Start" (or rather the icon :-)
- Click on the profile picture.
- Click on "Change account settings"
- Click the thing that "Sign in with a local account instead".
This means your settings won't be saved to Microsoft, I don't care because I only have this one Windows machine.
Change to Focus follows mouse
I used X-Mouse Controls:
https://superuser.com/questions/954021/how-do-you-enable-focus-follows-mouse-in-windows-10
Focus follows mouse
I've tried living with "click to focus" but ultimately it just means I constantly type in the wrong window. This can be embarassing sometimes. There are bad side effects of "focus follows mouse" on Windows, but I live with them.
I use this program to set it. https://joelpurra.com/projects/X-Mouse_Controls/
No need to "install" it, just run it once to permanently change the setting.
Settings -> Personalization -> Taskbar -> Taskbar behaviors -> Taskbar alignment -> Left
Use case: I want to delete a file, not click on a wee picture of a trash can.
https://www.howtogeek.com/759449/how-to-get-full-context-menus-in-windows-11s-file-explorer/
