Swap the Mouse Buttons. Make your Mouse Left-Handed.

Contributed by AlexTheBeast

March 29, 2005

Tagged: Windows

Convert any mouse into a leftie-friendly one.

Hey, all you left-handed people… here’s the quick little registry hack to swap the left and right mouse buttons. A buddy of mine needed this the other day and couldn’t find it.

This involves changing the registry. If you don’t know what you are doing, just stop. Learning how to backup your system and registry is a must.

Here’s the easy registry hack:

regedit

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse

REG_SZ

SwapMouseButtons

If you need to change it back, change the value to 0.

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Craig 3 years ago 1 point
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Hi,

My computer seems to keep the settings even though i change them in regedit. If I, however, change it in the mouse properties, it seems to take effect when i click apply. Does this mean that windows keeps these settings in memory? I have made .reg files on the desktop for right and left handed people, but it doesnt seem to change it. These .reg files are changing the value from 0 - 1 and vice-versa.

Any Ideas?

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risherz 2 years ago 1 point
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Very useful tip if you are left handed! I also found that http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/getstarted/mouse.mspx also has another way of swapping your mouse buttons without editing the registry or anything.

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nobi 2 years ago 1 point
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Hi,

I wanted to have my mouse left-handed when booting in the docking station (since I there have a mouse) and have it right-handed when booting "in the wild" (since there I only have the touchpad). Created two registry files (with the "SwapMouseButtons" set accordingly) which are imported during logon, but no effect.

Looks to me as though there is some other place to change as well... but I don't know where... any help appreciated.

cheers,
nobi

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