Apple’s Magic Mouse is Cool, but not for Windows
Apple has announced its latest input device, the Magic Mouse, a buttonless, multi-touch-surface mouse. This looks like a wonderful tool, and I’ll be getting one as soon as they’re available. However, there’s one problem: the Magic Mouse’s multi-touch features won’t work in Windows. For most people, this isn’t an issue, but for those of us who use Windows – regularly or occasionally – via Boot Camp, VMware Fusion, or Parallels Desktop, this will lead to problems.
In Apple’s tech note, the company says:
When you use an Apple Magic Mouse with Windows XP and Vista [...] up or down scrolling and two finger swiping does not work.
My current Logitech mouse works fine in both OSs: the scroll wheel scrolls in Mac OS X or Windows. But with a Magic Mouse, I’ll lose this scrolling. (The other features don’t work in Windows, though perhaps I could install a Logitech driver and get the extra buttons to work.) No big deal for me, given the little I use Windows (for go applications), but some users may find this a reason to not get a Magic Mouse.
Posted: 10/21/2009 by kirk | Filed under: Apple & Mac OS X | 17 Comments »
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Is this simply a driver problem, or a limitation of the hardware itself?
From what I understand, it’s a driver thing. I doubt they’ll be releasing a driver for Windows.
I just got the Magic Mouse. Works great in Snow Leopard. I have Win7 installed on VMWare Fusion 3 and while the horizontal scrolling and the back/forward navigation are disabled the primary button, secondary button (Rt click) and the vertical (up&down on the screen) all work just fine.
I don’t know if that’s enough for you but its true. The apple comment above is incorrect. I am hoping to find a driver for the other operations but am sure there is little chance of that.
The Apple tech note seems to be talking only about Windows running under Boot Camp, which makes sense. If Apple hasn’t released Boot Camp drivers to support the Magic Mouse, then all its fancy multitouch won’t work. On the other hand, I’m not sure how mouse interaction is relayed to virtual machines.
Greg,
I have Snow Leopard and an XP Professional OS via VMWare Fusion 3.0.1. Everything works fine but the icons on the desktop of the Windows machine. They do respond at all or they do after 1 minute! And at the same time the consumption of memory grows. I tried to to look for any update but didn’t find anything. Did you experience similar problems? Thanks in advance.
So you’re saying that vertical scrolling works then?
under VMWare Fusion 3 the vertical scrolling works like a charm. I can say that for sure.
Cheers.
That’s good to know. Apple’s document suggested that none of the touch things would work.
I have been told that the Apple Blue tooth Update for Windows fixes this.
Anyone check this?
Yup, know what you mean. Love the magic mouse on Mac OS, hate it on Windows 7 via Boot Camp. Anyone know if Apple is planning a Boot Camp update for the touch features?
The scrolling works fine..go to apple site download latest driver. Open in rar and extract 32 or 64 bit update. If you trying running file under win 7 as is wont work..extracted works fine and adds scrolling functionality, only cant swipe from side to side to move from page to page.
Hi guys,
magic mouse is working in Windows 7(32,64 bit) for Apple computers and also non Apple computers. For Apple computers you must install Boot Camp from 10.6.1 disc and manually use in Device Manager Apple Wirelles mouse driver.
For non Apple computers, you must install 4 drivers below:
AppleBluetoothEnablerInstaller,AppleBluetoothInstaller,AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller,AppleWirelessMouse. Once will be installed these drivers, open the Device Manager, find Bluetooth device and use manually Apple Built-in Bluetooth driver. Restart computer and provide pairing with Magic mouse. Once will be mouse paired, everything will work correctly(horizontal,vertical..).
Good luck
Where do you get the AppleBluetoothEnablerInstaller, AppleBluetoothInstaller, AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller, and AppleWirelessMouse Drivers? After extensive searching I couldn’t find it.
This mouse is lovely i’m almost fallin in love with it Lol.. It works pretty well with WINDOWS 7 via Vmfusion but if i switch completely to windows, it doesn’t do a thing, i cant even log in. So i have to connect my old mouse. I’m sure its a driver thing but untill i they release a driver for windows, i’m returning!
How do I get the magic mouse to work with a Toshiba with vista?
the mouse connects, works but without scroll. All the drivers I have found so far are only for mac platform and the 2 exe files are not solving the problem either.
Try bettertouchtool. You can pass gestures through as keyboard shortcuts.
I have VMware Fusion at work and Parallels 5 at home. The Magic Mouse (and Multi-touch trackpad) side-scrolling are recognized in the Parallels Window’s environments but not in Fusion – this is irritating because I am on the computer at work a lot more than at home.