Share via

Reverse the touchpad scrolling direction on the touch cover

Anonymous
2012-11-05T18:53:21+00:00

The mouse on the touch cover stupidly scrolls the wrong way. This is annoying, confusing, and unintuitive. I know apple started this trend, but I'm disappointed to see Microsoft copy this idiotic change. Even worse, I can't find a way to reverse it back to the normal scroll direction. Has anyone figured this out?

Surface
Surface

The Surface family includes Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, and other Surface products. Surface is designed to help organizations, students, and consumers be more productive.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-29T22:08:27+00:00

    Martin - nice job!

    I got the Trackpad Settings app to work. Here's how:

    First make sure you have the latest updates:

    From the Start screen, type Update, tap Settings, then tap Check for updates.

    Then....

    1. Open the Search charm, tap Settings, then type Devices and Printers.
    2. Tap Devices and Printers in the search results.
    3. Tap Refresh (circular arrow) up on the title bar - until the Surface icon looks like Surface.

    Now open the Trackpad Settings app and see if it works.

    Hope this helps,

    Kate

    30+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

20 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-29T09:50:34+00:00

    It requires some mild hacking.

    • launch the "run" application (just type run on the homescreen or press windws+r on the touch/type cover
    • Type "regedit.exe" into the run window, click run, and confirm the security warning
    • Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\HID\V EN_MSHW&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_MSAY0001&REV_100295A&Col02 \4&365f1178&0&0001\Device Parameters"
    • The value responsible for scrolling is called "FlipFlopWheel" for vertical scrolling, and "FlipFlopHScroll" for sideways scrolling
    • change the value to 1 to have "normal" scrolling on the trackpad.

    Remove and reattach touch cover, it should work now. If it doesn't, reboot your machine and check the function now.

    Now - I am not completely certain on this, but this registry value might affect a mouse connected to the surface as well (i.e. reversing its scroll wheel) - I have not tested this, since I don't use a mouse with the surface.

    and while you're at it, you could go ahead and improve scrolling alltogether. This would mean in the same registry key,

    • locate "VScrollHighResolutionDisable", and change it to 1.
    • launch the Control panel app, and open mouse settings. It should be in the group "Hardware and Sound", or if you do not use group view in the control panel, it is there directly.
    • head to the column "Wheel", and change the upper value to "1" (Lines per step on the scroll wheel for vertical scrolling)

    This should make the scrolling much more responsive, not as jaggy as it is out of the box.

    I hope this is helpful for you!

    kind regards

    Martin

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-12-03T00:50:32+00:00

    OK I found this checkbox:

    • In the Charm Bar click -> Settings -> Control Panel
    • In new window click Hardware and Sound, then under Devices and Printers click Mouse.
    • In new window click on the Device Settings tab, then click the Settings... button.
    • In new window (in my case it is Properties for Synaptics TouchPad) tap to select the Two-Finger Scrolling line, this shows the blue Settings/Gears icon and the Help/Question Mark icon to the right.
    • Click on the Settings icon.
    • In a new window, uncheck the Enable reverse scrolling direction.

    This changes just the TouchPad and leaves the wheel on my wireless USB mouse working correctly.

    6 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-29T02:34:25+00:00

    Encouraging that they're going to be giving us a way to fix this...

    Unfortunate, but typical that they released it without testing it.

    Seriously... did they fire all their testers? Soooo many non-working or barely functioning pieces of software here... It's like they want people to think they suck at Quality Control.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2012-11-21T04:08:26+00:00

    How completely bizarre that they would reverse the trackpad scrolling just for this o/s.

    Is someone in Redmond having a laugh?  What possible reason could there be for such a 180?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments