anshumanb/windows-10-focus-follows-mouse.md

Created July 20, 2021 05:54

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Set up focus follows mouse on Windows 10

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Navigate to Control Panel > Ease of Access > Ease of Access Center > Make the mouse easier to use
Check "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse" and hit OK
In the registry editor, navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Update ActiveWndTrkTimeout to 300
Update UserPreferencesMask by subtracting 40 bits from the first hex value e.g. DF -> 9F
Log out and log back in

Enable Xmouse (Focus Follows Mouse) in Windows

Press Win + R, paste control.exe /name Microsoft.EaseOfAccessCenter into the Run dialog, and press Enter. In the window that opens, click on “Make the mouse easier to use”.
Check the box for “Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse” and click OK.

This enables focus-follows-mouse with a default hover delay.
To customize the behavior, press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Navigate to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
In the right-hand pane, find and double-click UserPreferencesMask. To prevent windows from automatically rising to the front when they gain focus, subtract 40 from the first two characters of the value. For example, if the value is DF, change it to 9F.
Next, find the ActiveWndTrkTimeout value. If it doesn't exist, create it by right-clicking in the right-hand pane, selecting New → DWORD (32-bit) Value, and naming it ActiveWndTrkTimeout.
- Double-click it, select the Decimal base, and set its value to the desired delay in milliseconds (e.g., 300 for 300ms or (hex: 12C)).
Sign out of Windows and sign back in for the changes to take effect.

@anshumanb It works, thank you!
@abstractionmage I helped update the guide!