[Solved] Reversing the Scroll Wheel - FlipFlopWheel, PS/2, and USB

[Akdor 1154]

Hi,

I wish to reverse the scroll wheel direction, so my Win10 guest uses what would be referred to as "Natural Scrolling" on a Mac. My Linux host has this setting and it works well, however even when setting the "FlipFlopWheel" registry key in my Windows guest, Windows scrolling is still traditional/unreversed.
I believe this is because the FlipFlopWheel setting in Windows does not work for a PS/2 mouse, and Virtualbox's most basic mouse emulation emulates a PS/2 mouse instead of a USB mouse (even though I have my guest set to "USB Tablet" input, and Guest Additions installed). What I guess is happening is that mouse position events are being sent with the emulated USB tablet, and mouse click events (incl scroll events) are being sent with the emulated PS/2 mouse.

Is there any way to get Virtualbox to send mouse click events with an emulated USB device instead of PS/2, while USB Tablet is enabled?

Cheers
Jarrad

[scottgus1]

Aside from crossing the scrollwheel wires inside the mouse?

The three pointing devices seem to be PS/2 Mouse, USB Tablet, and USB Multi-touch Tablet. Seems the developers have not emulated a USB mouse.

I would ask the developers on the Mailing List or Chat, see https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Community, to see if this deduction on your part is correct. After that, you'd have to suggest a USB mouse as an Enhancement, and either wait for the devs to make it (could be a while) or crack out the source code and emulate one yourself.

Personally, I would suspect there will be a rather long wait for the developers to feel that a USB mouse would be better than a PS/2 mouse (unless they're doing it already for a big super-rich licensed Oracle customer), and I'd get out my soldering iron and see about swapping those mouse scrollwheel wires....

[socratis]

Virtualbox's most basic mouse emulation emulates a PS/2 mouse instead of a USB mouse

Seems the developers have not emulated a USB mouse.

Excuse me, both of you, but how exactly did you determine that, if you select "USB tablet" in the VM settings, the mouse is set to PS/2? Based on what? The FlipFlopWheel? I hope not.

If you look in the device manager you'll see an "HID-compliant mouse". If you set the VM settings to "PS/2 mouse" that entry is gone. You can have "USB Tablet" in the settings and you can actually uninstall the PS/2 driver from Windows 10.

[scottgus1]

All I did was look at the items in the Pointing Device dropdown, and took a shot from the hip. Switching my Windows 7 guest's device from PS/2 to USB Tablet did put a "HID-compliant mouse", like my Windows 10 host with USB mouse shows. Guess my shot went wide...

[Akdor 1154]

The VM in question is at work and I won't be back until Friday to check, but I believe that there was a PS/2 mouse listed in the guest's Device Manager when USB Tablet was selected in the guest's VM options, and I drew a conclusion (maybe incorrectly!) that mouse movement events were sent with the USB tablet driver, but button events were sent with the PS/2 driver (partly based on information here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/MouseInput ). This deduction was supported by the (probable, but undocumented) fact that FlipFlopWheel does not work with PS/2 devices. I'll investigate more on Friday when I have the VM handy.

[Akdor 1154]

With the VM settings set to USB Tablet, if I go into Device Manager on the guest, and disable everything but the PS/2 mouse, mouse input still works. I am unable to disable the PS/2 mouse itself. If I uninstall the PS/2 mouse, it asks for a reboot to make the change, however it is present again after the reboot.

Does this support my contention that VirtualBox is sending events with the PS/2 driver even when USB Tablet is selected?

--

Ooh, yay! In the quest to try and force-disable the PS/2 mouse to prove my point(er!), I tried to force the driver to something stupid to stop the PS/2 device from working. While looking for suitable stupid drivers, I noticed in the list a "HID-Compliant Mouse (WhFlip)". Selecting this for the PS/2 driver gives me the desired flipped scrolling in VirtualBox. Original problem solved!

[socratis]

I noticed in the list a "HID-Compliant Mouse (WhFlip)". Selecting this for the PS/2 driver gives me the desired flipped scrolling in VirtualBox. Original problem solved!

Thank you for posting the solution. And the link to the Wiki, I didn't know about that one. Nice!

[socratis]

Just for completion (and because it took me more than a couple of minutes to find it), go to Device Manager » Mice and other pointing device » HID-compliant mouse » right click and Update driver... » Browse my computer » Let me pick a device » uncheck the Show compatible hardware » Manufacturer: Microsoft, Model:HID-compliant mouse (WhFlip).

Of course I couldn't get it to work, but that's another story

[Akdor 1154]

Just for completion (and because it took me more than a couple of minutes to find it), go to Device Manager » Mice and other pointing device » HID-compliant mouse » right click and Update driver... » Browse my computer » Let me pick a device » uncheck the Show compatible hardware » Manufacturer: Microsoft, Model:HID-compliant mouse (WhFlip).

Of course I couldn't get it to work, but that's another story

Nearly, the original device is (probably! this may differ between installations) called a PS/2 mouse (I forget the exact wording, but "PS/2" is definitely in there. The Hardware ID will also be something like ACPI... instead of a Vendor and Device ID).

If there is no PS/2 mouse listed in your guest's Device Manager, then it's possible our VirtualBoxes are set up differently and sending inputs in a different way (I am on a Linux host). If this is the case then don't do the above, you should be able to just set "FlipFlopWheel" in the registry as normal.

[socratis]

OK, you'll need to do better than that if you want me to follow/verify. Not "something like that" or "not the exact wording". I'm gonna be lost