Global scroll acceleration in Windows

Question

Is there a way to add smoothing and acceleration to scrolling in Windows. Cruising through pages by scrolling faster beats having to scroll a hundred times, and is the default behaviour of the mouse scroll in Mac OS X.

I am aware that there are specialised mice that are capable of this, but there are also software methods to do achieve this for example Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller.

Is there a program to apply a Windows wide scrolling behaviour.

Notes: running Windows 7.

Solution 1

Installing Microsoft Mouse for any Microsoft mouse (I usually use the basic Intellimouse) provide a new setting in the Mouse control panel that allows you to set the scroll wheel to accelerating rather than N lines.

Solution 2

Install autohotkey and run the following script with it:

#InstallMouseHook

~WheelUp::
if (A_TimeSincePriorHotkey > 15)
{
    return
}
Send {PgUp}
return

~WheelDown::
if (A_TimeSincePriorHotkey > 15)
{
    return
}
Send {PgDn}
return

What it does is if a "wheel up" event is triggered it lets it through to the active window (~ prefix) and if the following trigger happens within 15ms (double "wheel up") it sends a "page up" to the active window. Same for "wheel down". Side effects: the cursor will be moved when "page up" is triggered (naturally), and it doesn't work if you are editing a text field, say, in a browser ("page up" is lost in the field, so the main window is not "paged up").

Autohotkey is an amazing software with rich scripting capabilities, look through documentation - there could be more tweaks you could do to Windows such as minimize a window on double escape:

~Esc::
if (A_PriorHotkey <> "~Esc" or A_TimeSincePriorHotkey > 400)
{
    ; Too much time between presses, so this isn't a double-press.
    KeyWait, Esc
    return
}
WinMinimize, A
return

Good luck.

Solution 3

There is also a free alternative to ScrollNavigator called Mouse Wheel Accelerator. It also has momentum scrolling but is not as customisable.

They both jerk a little, but on Chrome, you can combine it with the Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller for smoother scrolling. I believe Firefox has smooth scrolling built in.

Solution 4

I prefer Drag to Scroll because it doesn't use the biggest flaw in the mouse: the scroll wheel

Solution 5

In the meantime, user BoffinbraiN has created another AHK script and compiled it into an EXE file. You don't need to install AHK, just download the ZIP Archive from this forum post and extract it somewhere. As soon as you launch the EXE, the scroll acceleration works. It's very fast, but I like it this way.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

thanks for the quick response Molly, however these options do not facilitate scroll acceleration and smoothing unless your mouse already supports it.

[Admin]

@jay - right, updated my post accordingly.

[Admin]

@Molly, wow where on earth did you find this?

[Admin]

@jay - i think i googled 'scroll accelerator', the 5th link ...

[slm]

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[Ikus]

This worked in Windows 10 1709. It doesn't in Windows 10 2004. This setting only applies to the original MS wired mouse, not anymore for the Bluetooth mouse 3600. Looking for another solution now.

[Ikus]

Thank you, this works beautifully! Now I don't need the old IntelliPoint driver anymore that stopped working for the bluetooth mouse since Windows 10 2004.

[Connor]

Does this work for non-Microsoft mice?

[Max Yaskov]

@Connor No, only for Microsoft mices.

[dlsso]

No speed adjustment but seems to work well on Windows 10, thanks!