Changing the Way Your Mouse Works
In the beginning, a computer mouse consisted of a shell with one button to click with and a rubber ball on the bottom that correlated your mouse movements with a pointer on the screen. Nowadays, mice come in many shapes and sizes, employing a variety of functions, buttons, wheels, and connection methods.
Windows Vista offers enhanced wheel support that allows for smooth scrolling both vertically (as is traditional) and horizontally (on the newer mice that support this). Check the manufacturer's documentation to see if your mouse is able to take advantage of this technology. But even if your mouse is not of the latest generation, you can still customize your mouse settings in various ways to optimize the way it works with Windows.
To change the way the mouse buttons work:
In the Control Panel window, under Hardware and Sound, click Mouse. The Mouse Properties dialog box opens, displaying the Buttons tab.
On the Buttons tab, in the Button configuration section, select the Switch primary and secondary buttons check box to change the default primary button from left to right. This setting is useful if you are left-handed, you injure your right hand, or switch mousing hands to decrease wrist strain. In the Double-click speed area, drag the slider to the speed you want. Explore and change the other options on this page, and then click OK.
To change how the mouse pointer looks and works:
Open the Mouse Properties dialog box, and then click the Pointers tab. In the Scheme list, click one of the 21 available system schemes to change the pointer set. Experiment with some of the more-interesting system schemes, such as Conductor, Dinosaur, and Hands. The Customize list displays the pointers associated with that scheme. In the Customize list, click any pointer, and then click Browse. In the Browse dialog box displaying the contents of the Cursors folder, double-click any cursor to replace the selected pointer. Tip
Feel free to experiment with the shapes of pointers; you can restore the pointers to the original scheme defaults at any time by clicking Use Default.
 Click the Pointer Options tab, set the pointer speed, movement, and visibility options, and then click OK.
To change how the mouse wheel works:
Open the Mouse Properties dialog box, and then click the Wheel tab.
To control how much of the screen scrolls as you turn the mouse wheel, in the Vertical Scrolling area, either select the The following number of lines at a time option and then type or click the arrow keys to set the number of lines you want to scroll, or select the One screen at a time option. The default setting is to scroll three lines at a time, but if you frequently use the mouse to scroll through lengthy documents or Web pages, you might find it more convenient to scroll by screen rather than by line. Windows Vista sets the scrolling distance based on the size of the window you are scrolling in. Tip
You can move forward and backward between visited Web pages by holding down the Shift key and then scrolling the wheel vertically.
If your mouse supports horizontal scrolling, in the Tilt the wheel to scroll the following number of characters at a time box, enter the number of characters you want to scroll horizontally when you tilt the mouse wheel to the left or right.
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