Horizontal Scrolling Not Working In Windows 7 or 8.1

[loukingjr]

I thought I would revisit this issue.
Tested in OSX 10.9.3 & 10.9.4, VB 4.3.12

Horizontal scrolling doesn't work with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 with guest additions installed.
not with the Apple Mouse, the Magic Mouse, the TouchPad or a TrackPad.

I tested the TouchPad with PS/2, USB Tablet and USB Multi-Touch settings. the other devices with USB Tablet set.

In the Windows mouse setting it has HID Compliant Mouse highlighted.

Horizontal scrolling works fine in Linux guests.

any thoughts?

[mpack]

I'm confused. Are you saying that the display can't be scrolled sideways, or that some mouse action doesn't cause the expected result? It seems to me natural that Windows guests will not respond to mouse actions that Windows mice can't generate.

[loukingjr]

I'm confused. Are you saying that the display can't be scrolled sideways, or that some mouse action doesn't cause the expected result? It seems to me natural that Windows guests will not respond to mouse actions that Windows mice can't generate.

now I'm confused. Windows mice don't have horizontal scrolling?

as an example, in this forum or in other forums, if someone posts a pic that is too large to display at once, If I am on a Mac or in a Linux guest I can scroll the picture in it's frame both vertically and horizontally. Not so in Windows 7 or 8.1. Someone posted here that it does work with XP however.

[mpack]

now I'm confused. Windows mice don't have horizontal scrolling?

Well let's be precise: mice don't scroll anything. They send movement and click signals to a guest app or OS, and that app or OS performs whatever function they like based on those signals, though good practice dictates that it should try to match a users reasonable expectations. However, not all apps will respond to all signals - e.g. none of my Windows apps would respond to a horizontal scroll wheel signal even if one was sent.

Until not so long ago, standard Windows mice had one or two buttons and nothing else, e.g. no scroll wheel. That wheel now exists and typically causes the app to scroll up/down or zoom in/out - depending on how the app interprets the function. If there's a way to send a sideways scroll command with one of these mice then that's something I've omitted from my PC knowledge.

If I want to scroll something sideways with the mouse I would either click on the horz. scroll bar, click and drag the scroll bar "thumb", or (app allowing) click and drag the object or image itself.

Edit: Just checked the Windows API docs. There is indeed a WM_MOUSEHWHEEL message (note the 'H' in the middle), however this has only existed since Vista, and I suspect that many apps won't have bothered with it, even if the mouse had one. I also suspect this message will be sent by touch interfaces rather than mice.

[loukingjr]

okay, it's hard to describe in text but yes, Windows 7 and 8.1 guests don't seem to translate horizontal scroll wheel movements. However, in 8.1 horizontal scroll does work if you are using Metro but not if you are in the Desktop. Beats me. A ticket on Bugtracker was started two years ago that is still open and I added a comment 2 weeks ago. It's not a big deal. I was more curious than anything.

edit: here's the Ticket.. https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10275

[loukingjr]

Edit: Just checked the Windows API docs. There is indeed a WM_MOUSEHWHEEL message (note the 'H' in the middle), however this has only existed since Vista, and I suspect that many apps won't have bothered with it, even if the mouse had one. I also suspect this message will be sent by touch interfaces rather than mice.

Three of the four devices I tested were touch devices. From a post earlier today there may also be an issue getting multi-touch gestures to work. I don't use them myself even natively.

[socratis]

Actually, Windows and its applications are known for their inconsistency on this front, mainly because there was not a real push from Microsoft itself. To give you an example, open up Notepad. Copy and paste this very paragraph (on purpose one long line). Make sure that Word Wrap is not checked and that the window itself is not showing the vertical scroll bar, only the horizontal one. Now try to scroll vertically. It scrolls horizontally!

If you have a long enough text so that the vertical scrollbar is showing, a vertical scroll will work normally, a horizontal scroll will work like a multi-fast-vertical scroll. Go figure.

This behavior is not met although in all applications. I have an app that if you scroll vertically over the horizontal scroll bar (only), it scrolls horizontally. Finally, there are other applications, that are cross-platform (like LibreOffice), which behave pretty much the same on all platforms (just tried them on Ubuntu, Win7 and native Mac).

And remember that USB Multi-Touch was a recent addition to VBox (sorry, can't remember the exact version). There's a possibility that there are kinks that still have to be worked out. But like you, I don't use multi-touch. Only normal scroll for vertical, Shift-scroll for horizontal scroll and (sometimes) Ctrl-scroll for zoom.

[loukingjr]

I'm going to take your word for it. Although I may try it just to see it for myself.

silly Microsoft.

[mpack]

Windows is not as regimented a platform as Apple. Lack of consistency is a given - and IMHO a welcome one.

[loukingjr]

Windows is not as regimented a platform as Apple. Lack of consistency is a given - and IMHO a welcome one.

Certainly an interesting point of view. Personally, I prefer my calculators to consistently return a result of 4 after keying in 2+2=, or automobiles that turn left when you turn the steering wheel to the left. But I am old-fashioned.

[mpack]

But I am old-fashioned.

.. or just throwing up straw men. The context of my comment was clear: IMHO Windows leaves more room for third party innovation than an Apple platform does. One of the admittedly unfortunate side effects is that not all applications will behave the same way. For me that's good because it gives me a real choice. It's expected that all variants will correctly perform the essential task.

[loukingjr]

Actually I had no idea that's what you were implying. I disagree of course. But I do run OSX, Linux and Windows and as far as I'm concerned there is a place for all three.