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Thinkpad X1 Windows 10 Middle Mouse Button Issue

The middle mouse button on Thinkpads can be used together with the TrackPoint:er to scroll windows without having to move the pointer to the scrollbar. This is an awesome feature that has worked on Thinkpads with MS Windows for several years.

Issue

Unfortunately, this feature clashes with Windows 10 Cortana on my fresh Thinkpad X1 Carbon (2016). Scrolling does work as previously, but it also triggers the big Cortana search window/panel to pop up, which renders the system nearly useless for anyone used to middle mouse button scrolling. More precisely, Cortana pops up as soon as you press the middle mouse button. I made a brief Youtube screencast illustrating the extremely annoying problem. Others report the same problem, e.g. Thinkpad X1, Thinkpad X260, Thinkpad T460s.

Workarounds

I know of the below three workarounds for solving this problem (and one invalid one). I highly recommend the first one.

Workaround #1 - Disable Win + S (recommended)

It turns out that the middle mouse button on some Thinkpads generates the equivalent key presses as Win + S, which is also the sequence that opens Cortana on Windows 10. I've created a AutoHotkey script that simply consumes this key sequence and sends it to nirvana. Luckily, the scrolling works just fine anyways. To apply this fix:

1. Download and run Windows10-WinS-disable.exe. You should see it working immediately.

To make this run each time Windows starts, add/drag it to Start menu -> All Programs -> Startup (open via Win + R and shell:Common Startup).

Know problems with this fix:

• Win + S for opening Cortana no longer works.
• Fix does not work in Task Manager, i.e. Cortana still pops up if using middle mouse button scrolling in that window (or pressing Win + S).

BTW, if you don't trust the above executable, you can compile it yourself from my Windows10-WinS-disable.ahk script using AutoHotkey.

Workaround #2 - Disable Win + <key> in Explorer (alright)

An alternative for preventing Win + S from opening Cortana on Windows 10 is to disable the Win key in Explorer, which can be done by a single edit to the Windows Registry. I created two Windows Registry files that disables and enables (to undo the fix) for this:

• Windows10-WinKey-disable.reg - right click and save with extension *.reg, doubleclick to apply fix, and restart Windows (required).
• Windows10-WinKey-enable.reg - undo fix.

Know problems with this fix:

• Win + <key> actions related to the Explorer are suppressed in Windows, e.g. Win + D will no longer open the Desktop.
• Pressing the middle mouse button while the cursor is over a text field / in an editor, will cause a (lower case) s to be typed.

Workaround #3 - Uninstall / Disable Cortana (unknown side effects)

Disabling Cortana will avoid the problem while keeping middle mouse button scrolling still working. Unforturtunately, it is not fully straightforward to disable Cortana. The best I could find was to uninstall Cortana or to make Windows not find it.

Know problems with this fix:

• Windows logins using a Microsoft account no longer works.
• Windows Store won't work.
• Breaks the Windows 10 Start Menu and probably Search. Note: Classic Shell provides a very nice alternative Start Menu with Search.
• ...?

Since it's not clear to me what other problems there are by uninstalling Cortana, I would not recommend this approach.

Not a Workaround / Fix

Lenovo has released Synaptics ThinkPad UltraNav Driver 19.0.17.77 (2016-03-04) which claims to "Fixed an issue where middle button click opened Cortana". Importantly, this also causes scrolling using the middle mouse bottom to no longer work as reported by several. I haven't tried this, but it makes sense given that the middle mouse button generates key code sequence Win + S - it sounds like Lenovo has simply disabled the middle mouse button completely.

For troubleshooting purposes, it would be helpful to know what key scan code sequence this generated and compare to the below ones I see. If anyone already has this Synaptics version installed, could you please check with KeyCodes and report back here?

Troubleshooting

Using the KeyCodes software, I found that when I click the middle mouse button on my Thinkpad X1 Carbon (2016) the following key code sequence is generated:

1. OnKeyDown Key code=91, Control keys=, Key name Left Windows key (MS Natural Kb)
2. OnKeyDown Key code=83, Control keys=, Key name s
3. OnKeyPress s
4. OnKeyUp Key code=83, Control keys=, Key name s
5. OnKeyUp Key code=91, Control keys=, Key name Left Windows key (MS Natural Kb)

This is seen when the Win + <key> feature is disabled in Windows (the above workaround). Without the workaround, we will only see:

1. OnKeyDown Key code=91, Control keys=, Key name Left Windows key (MS Natural Kb)
2. OnKeyUp Key code=83, Control keys=, Key name s
3. OnKeyUp Key code=91, Control keys=, Key name Left Windows key (MS Natural Kb)

which is probably because the Explorer grabs the other two (and opens Cortana).

I observed this with Windows 10 Pro (x64) with Synaptics ThinkPad UltraNav Driver 19.0.17.43 (N1CGX17W; 2015-11-19) on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (2016) with BIOS 1.12 (N1FET38W).