Changing mouse pointer options.

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Hi all. I usually have the mouse pointer option checked to always “snap” to the default button in a dialog box. But there are some things I do where this is annoying. I have to click through several windows to get to that option box. Is there some way to create a shortcut, or somesuch, that would let me go directly to that box? Or better yet, some script that would simply toggle that option with a “click?”

Hopefully, this image will load.

 

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This works in Windows 10 (and other versions) so it should work for Windows 11.

Right click the Start Menu button and select All Control Panel Items which open the Control Panel main window.
Right click the Mouse icon and select Create shortcut which says it can’t create a shortcut and ask to place the shortcut on the Desktop which you respond yes to.
You now have a shortcut to the mouse settings on your Desktop.
Side note: As a shortcut on your desktop you can create a keyboard shortcut for it.

Alternatively,
Open a Run box (WinKey + R)
Enter main.cpl and press the Enter key.
This opens the Mouse settings window.

HTH, Dana:))

1 user thanked author for this post.

Artie

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Unfortunately, Win 11 doesn’t have the “All Control Panel Items” option. But the “main.cpl” does work. Technically, it’s more keyboard strokes than mouse clicks, but it does get me directly there.

Thanks for the help.

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Type Control Panel in the search box. It’s still there.

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Going to the Control Panel isn’t really the problem. That’s just as many clicks as going through “Settings” as I am now. There still doesn’t seem to be a way to create a shortcut to the “mouse pointer” dialog box.

None of the settings or control panel entries will let me right-click, and select create shortcut. In fact, there’s no right-click actions.

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That’s the thing, there never is a mouse icon. Let me see if I can show in pics what my steps are. And just to clarify, this is a Laptop, running Win 11 22H2.

I click on the Control Panel and get a screen that has no mouse icon.

I click on “View devices and printers” That gets me the screen to select the mouse. It has a mouse icon, but there are no right-click actions. As in, nothing happens when you right click that.

I left click it and get the next screen. Still no right-click actions. Then when I click the little square-with-an-arrow, (red arrow), it takes me to the window I posted in my first post, where I can turn the pointer snap on and off.

Hopefully these screen caps will load.

 

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@Artie, when you open ‘Control Panel’ (certainly in Win 10), there is a text shown in your screenshot in the top right corner:- View by:  Category

Category is a dropdown where you can select 1 Category, 2 Large Icons, 3 Small Icons.

Once you have selected say Large Icons (my favourite) it is remembered next time you open Control Panel, and all Control Panel items are displayed.

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 Core Ultra 7 155H 32GB Win 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.5189)
Dell Inspiron 15 7580 i7 16GB Win 11 pro 24H2 (26100.3775),
Microsoft 365 Version 2502 (18526.20168)
Location: UK

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I just checked my Win 10 desktop computer. It still does not have the “All Control Panel Items” when you right-click the Start button. But at least, when you go to settings>devises and printers, it does let you right-click the mouse icon, and pin it to the start panel. It won’t let me create a shortcut, but it does let me eliminate 2 or 3 clicks to get to the mouse pointer options.

But, can’t do it on the Win 11 laptop. At least, not yet.

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The command to directly open Mouse Properties (Pointer Options tab 2) on Win10 is:

control main.cpl,,2

I created a desktop  shortcut using that command on my Win10 Pro system and it works as expected so it “should” also work on Win11.

FYI, you’ll probably want to change the “default” icon to something else like a mouse (or your specific mouse if it has it’s own icon.)

BTW, I got that shortcut from the List of Commands to Open Control Panel Items in Windows 10 over on the Windows 10 forum site.

2 users thanked author for this post.

wavy, Artie

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Sweet. If I put “control main.cpl,,2” in the run command, it does exactly what I want. But I’m having trouble creating the shortcut. I can right-click my desktop, and select “create new shortcut.” It has me select a target folder, and a shortcut name. But I don’t see where I put the actual command.

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Seems like a lot of effort when simply hitting the Enter key will activate the Default button. If the dialog box has the cursor in another field the default button will usually have a letter underlined which with the Alt key will execute the button.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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But I don’t always want the default button. This option jumps the pointer to the box. Then I can easily select what I want.

But I found the solution, with the help from everyone. I simply put “control main.cpl,,2” as the shortcut “Target.” Works perfect. Exactly what I wanted.

Thanks all. You got me there.

P.S. It still won’t let me pin it to the taskbar, but I can pin it to the “start” bar. So, two clicks.

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Thanks again all. You guys (gal’s) are great.

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Artie wrote:

It still won’t let me pin it to the taskbar, but I can pin it to the “start” bar. So, two clicks.

How to Add Shortcuts to the Windows Taskbar

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Artie wrote:

But I found the solution, with the help from everyone. I simply put “control main.cpl,,2” as the shortcut “Target.” Works perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Thanks all. You got me there. P.S. It still won’t let me pin it to the taskbar, but I can pin it to the “start” bar. So, two clicks.

Since you have a shortcut on the Desktop, you can create a keyboard shortcut of 3 keys pressed at the same time … not clicking that will run the shortcut and open the mouse settings window.
Right click the shortcut and select Properties.
On the Shortcut tab place the pointer in the Shortcut Keys box and click to make the cursor active. Enter a key (such as M for “mouse”). The Ctrl and Alt keys will be added so the shortcut key so it is Ctrl + Alt + M. Press Apply and OK.
Pressing Ctrl, Alt, and M keys at the same time will open that Mouse Settings box.

I take these desktop shortcuts one step further and make the shortcut invisible on the Desktop and use the shortcut via its keyboard shortcut.

BTW:  On my Windows 10 Home the control main.cpl,,2 command opens the Mouse settings window to the first tab which is the same as the main.cpl command.  Also on my Mouse settings the Pointer Options tab is not the second tab.  Must be different in Windows 10 Pro and Windows 11.

 

HTH, Dana:))

1 user thanked author for this post.

Artie

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Just another Forum Poster wrote:

Artie wrote:

It still won’t let me pin it to the taskbar, but I can pin it to the “start” bar. So, two clicks.

How to Add Shortcuts to the Windows Taskbar

I’ll read over the whole article, but the first method doesn’t work. There is no “pin to taskbar” option when you right-click the desktop icon or the Start Bar icon.

Drcard: the CTRL + Alt + M worked great. Thanks.

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Ok, attached is a powershell script I created that toggles the “SnapTo” option ON/OFF just as if you opened the control panel and changed it (i.e. it take effect immediately.)

The “quickest” way to use it would be to create a shortcut to it and then assign it a simple shortcut key (i.e. my browser is assigned the shortcut key F7 so I can open it anytime I want by simply pressing that key.)

Note: be sure not to use an existing key that’s already been assigned to another shortcut and/or a build-in Windows function as doing so will disable its previous function!

06/11/23: see next post for updated version.

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Updated the powershell script so it displays the SnapTo status when it’s run like this:

And added a timer that “automatically” closes the status display after 3 secs.

• if you want to change how long it displays, replace the “-Seconds” value on line 51 of the script.

Updated version attached.

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Thanks for that work, alejr. But I’m not sure how to install that script. I haven’t used scripts before. Do I just put that in place, where I had the “control main,,2” before?

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You don’t install it, it’s a set of commands just like a .bat (batch file) except it they’re “powershell” commands instead of “cmd” commands.

You can place it wherever you want on your drive and then either pin it to your taskbar in place of the control main,,2 command you’re currently using or (my preferred option) create a shortcut to it (doesn’t matter where you put it but I keep mine in the “same” directory as the script itself) and assign a simple “shortcut key” to the shortcut (like the F7 I use on my own system) so a simple “key press” runs it.

BTW, if you encounter the problem where it always asks you which program to use to run it, goto:

Settings > Apps > Default apps > Choose default apps by file type

And scroll down to the .ps1 entry and assign it to Windows PowerShell

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Not sure what I’m doing wrong. When I do that, I get the window that says something like: “The app you’re trying to install isn’t a Microsoft app . . . . blah, blah, blah.” In other words, it’s trying to install rather than run.

That happens even if I right-click and select “Run in Windows Powershell.”

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I’ll Google “running Powershell scripts”, and see what I get.

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Sounds like the settings required for Windows to recognize a .ps1 file as a PowerShell script are missing from your registry.

Attached is a ps1.reg file (created using the registry entries from HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT on my system) that should add/change them to get it working.

If it works, you’ll see the following “context menu” options for .ps1 files…

With the “default” option (i.e. what happens when you double-click it) being Run.

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Still not working. I ran the reg file, then rebooted. It still wants to install something rather than run. I appreciate the effort, but the previous solution does work.

I’ll continue to read up on running powershell scripts and see if I can figure it out, just for the sake of learning.

Thanks again for the help.

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