For users of Linux who also have to use Windows, there is one feature missing in Windows. In Linux, you can scroll in any window, or in a pane of a window, just by putting the mouse cursor over the window and scrolling using the middle scroll button on your mouse. Unfortunately, in Windows, you must click on a window, or in a pane of a window, before scrolling in that window or pane.
We have discovered a free tool, called Wizmouse, that allows you to scroll in a window that does not have focus.
Download Wizmouse from
Once you install Wizmouse, by default it runs and opens its settings dialog box.
Set the desired options and click OK to close the dialog box but leave Wizmouse running. You can access the settings dialog box again by selecting Settings or Wizmouse 1.0.0.9 (or the version number you are running) from the pop-up menu.
You can enable and disable Wizmouse by turning on or off the Enabled option on the menu.
While Wizmouse is enabled, you can scroll on any window or pane in a window just by putting the mouse cursor over that window or pane. For example, in the image below, you can see that Windows Explorer has two panes (labeled Pane 1 and Pane 2) in the window that can be scrolled separately.
Usually, you would have to click in one pane or the other to be able to scroll in that pane. With Wizmouse is enabled, put your cursor in Pane 1 and use the middle scroll button on your mouse to scroll in that pane. Then, you can put the cursor over Pane 2 and use the middle scroll button to scroll in that pane without clicking in the pane first.
Wizmouse also allows you to enable mouse wheel support for applications that do not have it. Turn on the Enable mouse wheel for applications without mouse wheel support option on the Wizmouse dialog box in the settings section.
Wizmouse is a very handy, free program for Windows that provides Linux-like scrolling in Windows.
by Lori Kaufman
This is a great app. I've been using Linux for a while and when i go back to using Windows this is definitely a small feature i miss.
Thanks for posting this :D
To be frank I was not even aware that this feature existed in Linux! Thanks for pointing that out in the first place!
A nice open source program allowing the scrolling in any window without focus as well as moving and resizing windows as in Linux, is Taekwindow.
[...] allows you to scroll in any window without having to click on it to give it focus (see our post, Scroll in Any Window Without Focusing on it). We also showed you how to easily resize windows to specific sizes in our post, Easily Resize [...]