When Mouse Clicks Go Wrong

Did it ever happen to you that a double-click on a file lead to moving the file instead for a pixels in the direction that you moved the mouse ? If you try to double-click a file and move the mouse for more than four pixels after the first click the file will be moved instead of executed.

While this error margin was sufficient when Windows 98 was the standard it proves to be a problem for many users who have got high end monitors with large resolutions. If you fall into this trap every now and then you might want to increase this error margin which can be done in the Registry.

I’m going to show you how to change the values. Press Windows R, enter regedit and hit enter. Now navigate to the Registry key ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop’. Look in the left window and search for the keys DragHeight and DragWidth which are both set to four pixels by default.

Double-click on entry at a time and edit the number. I suggest doubling it to eight first for both Registry keys. Changes become active immediately. Keep them for some time and see if they solved the problem. If they did not you might want to increase the value even further.

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Tags: registry tips, registry tweaks, windows registry
Categories: Knowledge, Operating Systems, Windows

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4 Responses to “When Mouse Clicks Go Wrong”

1. Thinker says:

   November 9, 2007 at 2:53 pm

   Since IE5 for Win98 was introduced I always use one-click interface. It’s much much better.

   Reply
2. gnome says:

   November 9, 2007 at 3:45 pm

   I on the other hand tend to severely spank the mouse…

   Reply
3. Sanctimonious Ape says:

   November 10, 2007 at 9:04 am

   This is much easier to accomplish with M$’ TweakUI program, available at this page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

   Simply go to the “Mouse” section and modify the “Drag” value — they even provide an icon to the side for immediate testing purposes. The myriad options provided for changing system settings to your liking make this tiny 147KB download a must-have.

   Reply
4. Martin says:

   November 10, 2007 at 10:25 am

   Some prefer the manual way because they see what they are doing and can understand how it was done instead of simply pushing a button.

   Reply