Is there a way to force the mouse to be confined to an arbitrary window in windows 7?

Question

I have a multi-monitor setup, and run almost all programs in windowed-mode. This works great for the most part, but is problematic when some applications, or even webbapps, use the position of the mouse inside the window for interfacing. When I inevitably get sloppy, move the mouse too far, and click, the window I was working with looses focus, and all kind of weird things happen with the action I was trying to achieve by clicking.

What I want to do is tell windows' desktop manager that untill I tell it oterwise (say by leaving the application by alt-tabbing), the cursor should not be able to leave a selected window. Is that possible? If not, can the same effect reliably be achieved with third party applications?

Answer 1

You could try WMC, aka "Warcraft III Mouse Capture":

WMC is an extended version of Warcraft III Mouse Capture. It allows you to lock the mouse within a specified window (not just limited to Warcraft III).

The primary use of this program is to have a game (in window mode) on one monitor and applications such as IM and internet browser on another. Without WMC if you move your mouse to the edge of the screen while playing your game, your mouse will just leave the game. You wont be able to aim!

You have to manually pick the window you want to lock to (one window at a time), but it may get you at least part way there. :)

Answer 2

Borderless gaming (https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming) has an option called "Use Mouse Lock Hotkey (Scroll Lock)" which confines the mouse cursor to the currently active window. In my testing, confinement stops when you press scroll lock again or when you alt-tab away from the application.