Excel scrolls the wrong window on hover

Anonymous
2016-02-19T13:07:31+00:00

If two (or more) instances of Excel are open, and one of them has the focus, when hovering the second one, scrolling is still applied to the first one. We need to steal focus from the first window of Excel and then scroll the second.

This seems like a bug and can be reproduced easily (more easily with two monitors).

Lets say you have two windows of Excel open : A and B.

You're working on A but you need to read B. hover your mouse over Excel B, scroll... the scrolling occurs in A ! You must click on B, scroll, then return on A.

Now, with focus on A, open another application (let's say Word), and, of course, set the focus to the newly open app. Be sure to see Excel A and B. Hover your mouse over B, scroll... Scrolling still happens on A.

This does not happen with Word or Outlook. If you open 2 windows of Word, the scroll occurs in the one that is hovered, as expected.

I don't think there's a solution, this is a bug and should be adressed by Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-11-02T20:33:59+00:00

    I have exactly the same problem.

    EXCEL disables the "Scroll Inactive Window" option

    The option works perfectly well with Word, Outloog, Chrome, and a host of other programs, so it's definitely an EXCEL problem.

    This only happended in the last update ie at the end of October although I was on holiday from mid-Sept to mid-Oct so maybe it's the Sept update.

    Windows 10 64-bit, build 14393.351

    Excel 2016 MSO (16.0.7329.1017) 32-bit

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-02T16:08:48+00:00

    It doesnt appear to only be between excel windows.

    In Windows10 with "scroll inactive windows" enabled, if Excel is the active window it effectively cancels this setting out.  If I scroll in IE with Excel as the selected window, it scrolls in Excel.

    It can be very frustrating because I keep forgetting that Excel breaks the "scroll inactive windows" setting and it would be preferable if Excel worked with this setting the same as every other program.

    Edit:  I am using Windows 10 Anniversary Edition, most recent updates applied as of this post.  I am using Excel 2016 with all available updates applied.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T08:18:47+00:00

    Good point regarding the File screen.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T08:16:42+00:00

    @Prabhavathi Patil, I know, you are only repeating the problem I described.

    This is NOT the expected behavior and you shouldn't say "you may have to click to scroll". Try the same with Word and everything is fine. Word has the expected behavior with scrolling without clicking.

    As of Windows 8, scrolling occurs in the hovered window of explorer, too. Not the currently active one.

    Your reply did not help. What you could do to help is report this to Microsoft's Office Developers team...

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