This tutorial will show you how to change the mouse hover time for an auto select or open event for your account in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11.
The mouse hover time is the time in milliseconds that the mouse pointer has to stay hovered over an item before an event happens. For example:
- Hover pointer over icon on taskbar before thumbnail preview of open window displays.
- Hover pointer over file, folder, or drive in File Explorer or on desktop to auto select when using Single-click to open an item (point to select).
Starting with Windows 11 build 26120.3671 (Beta 24H2), build 26200.5518 (Dev), and build 27842.1000 (Canary), Microsoft is starting to make more mouse related settings available directly under Settings > Accessibility > Mouse and Settings > Accessibility > Mouse pointer and touch without needing to go into Control Panel. This includes the settings for mouse indicator, mouse pointer trails, and further mouse behavior and pointer customization. As part of this work, Microsoft as also added the ability to adjust the amount of time needed to hover over a window to activate it, if you have activated on hover enabled. Finally, Microsoft updated the icon used for Mouse pointer speed in Bluetooth & Devices > Mouse and added an icon to the Enhance mouse pointer precision option.
Here's How:
1 Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
2 Navigate to the key below in the left pane of Registry Editor. (see screenshot below)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse
3 In the right pane of the Mouse key, double click/tap on the MouseHoverTime string value (REG_SZ) to modify it. (see screenshot above)
4 Type in how many milliseconds you want for the mouse hover time, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)
The default mouse hover time is 400 milliseconds.
1000 milliseconds equals 1 second.
5 Close Registry Editor.
6 Either Sign out and Sign in or restart the computer to apply.
That's it,
Shawn Brink
Last edited:
