If Logitech can do it, so can I. Right?
December 24, 2012 1:51 PM   Subscribe

I can't seem to make the buttons on my mouse do what I want. And I know damn well that it's possible.

I have a Microsoft Wireless 4000 mouse. It has a tilt wheel for horizontal scrolling, but I want pushing the tilt wheel to the side to send "back" and "forward" to the browser instead. Microsoft's Intellipoint (or it's bloatier replacement) doesn't give me control over the tilt wheel, except to enable or disable the horizontal scrolling.

So I decided to give up on it and get the Logitech m525, which was extremely hard to use, to the point that I was afraid I was courting carpal tunnel syndrome and went back to the MS4000. But the SetPoint software that came with the m525 did let me control the tilt wheel on the MS4000 mouse. Which would be all I need, except that those controls only show up when I have the m525 plugged in.

So I guess a workaround is to keep the m525, and plug it in if I need to change my mouse settings, but it seems like there should be something better. I've tried auto-hotkey, but can't seem to get it to respond to WheelRight and WheelLeft, and tried a few other third-party programs that didn't work either.

This is all on a PC running Windows 7. Any good suggestions would be really appreciated. I'm willing to do fairly technical stuff, or get someone to do it for me if it involves writing programs, but I'm out of ideas on my own. Thanks.
posted by still_wears_a_hat to Computers & Internet (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I think Windows 7 is screwy when it comes to a mouse. I have no answer other than to tell you I make a simple change to my Logitech mouse which can be done with any mouse, I use a lefty mouse (switch right and left buttons). Every, EVERY, time I reboot machine I have to redo the mouse change. I have clicked everything I could find to make it permanent like on my XP machine, but nope.

It sounds like you have tried some good options including outside software, but I would focus on Microsoft. I googled "windows 7 mouse settings not saving" and was led to this Microsoft forum. I am less technically oriented than it sounds like you are, so I decided to just suck it up and make the change on every reboot, but it sounds like this could help.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:51 PM on December 24, 2012


There's an application that's been around for aeons (10 years +!?) that lets you program your mouse called Stroke It that works with Win7. It's the mother of all mouse macros.
posted by redindiaink at 7:08 AM on December 25, 2012


Maybe this will help? http://www.ghacks.net/2012/12/27/remap-your-mouse-buttons-on-windows/
posted by nostrada at 1:08 PM on December 27, 2012


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