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On older versions of Windows, it was possible to write a utility that would emulate focus follows pointer, by installing a global message hook. More recent vers
by pacaro 11y ago
On older versions of Windows, it was possible to write a utility that would emulate focus follows pointer, by installing a global message hook. More recent versions prevent messing around with focus across applications for obvious security reasons
- TeMPOraL 11y ago> More recent versions prevent messing around with focus across applications for obvious security reasons That's sad, actually, but not unexpected. Security has a habit of sucking fun out of everything.
- pjc50 11y agoPity, because Windows inter-app security on the same desktop is almost non-existant; apps can just send each other arbitary messages.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThat is the cool part about living on Windows and part of me gets sadder every time they try to limit it. I understand the rationale, but I still like to be able to tinker with 3rd party software while it's running. The whole concept of app isolation just rubs me wrong.
- pjc50 11y agoYeah, there's quite a lot of Raymond Chen posts with the theme of "we had to take this cool feature out because people were abusing it". Only way round that is to go full Apple and refuse to run unvetted applications. Maybe we need a flavour of UAC that allows you to put random junk apps in sandboxes while the others talk happily among each other.
- Jtsummers 11y agoMicrosoft's Tweak UI (part of PowerToys) allowed focus follows pointer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweak_UI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweak_UI
- CUViper 11y agoThe native way, which still works on Windows 10, is to call SystemParametersInfo() with SPI_SETACTIVEWINDOWTRACKING, SPI_SETACTIVEWNDTRKZORDER, and SPI_SETACTIVEWNDTRKTIMEOUT, followed by a broadcast WM_SETTINGCHANGE message. See my MouseWinX tool I linked elsewhere if you want an example.