Inverse Mouse Scroll in Windows

The scroll wheel in MS Windows has always felt peculiar. For those accustomed to the “natural” scroll direction in OS X, might feel agitated in Windows. Scrolling with a finger should be like sliding the page up and down since it isn’t required to hold the mouse arrow above the slider bar.

Push the page around.

The mouse wheel might even feel like a flight stick for some: push forward for down and pull back for up. Sadly, the default direction in Windows is reversed, and there isn’t an option to reverse (inverse) the direction unless the mouse manufacturer supplies one with their driver.

After inverting the scroll direction in Windows 8, I don’t need to spend a moment trying to figure out where the page went or concentrate on moving the scrollbar as opposed to the page. Note that Windows within a virtual machine on OS X may already support the same scroll direction.

How-to flip mouse scroll using regedit

This is a popular enough request that a web search should put the answer very near the top of the list. Here is a well written solution using the registry to flip scroll direction found on Superuser.

If you have never edited your Windows registry, or feel uncomfortable, then a better solution may be to find a mouse driver that supports scroll direction options. More than one mouse may be listed in the registry. Feel free to skip identifying your current mouse by changing them all. Use Powershell with administrator access to start regedit. Search for “FlipFlopWheel” which should be under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet. Change the FlipFlopWheel value from 0 to 1. After editing all, close regedit and restart your mouse (disconnect and reconnect).

That should do it. Your scroll direction feels natural like pushing a page with your finger.