Windows – configure the default text selection behavior in Windows

(eg. mouse click selects entire word vs. mouse click inserts an active cursor)

I find the mouse click behavior of Windows XP and Windows 7 annoying and intrusive. I don't remember Windows NT being quite this bad, or MacOS 7 – 10 which I used in the nineties.

When I'm using a browser and I click on a text field – for example, the address bar, or a search box – the first thing which happens is the entire field is selected.Subsequent clicks seem to select parts of words, often deciding arbitrarily to exclude or include adjacent punctuation. The same in Excel and other apps, and when trying to rename files, so I'm assuming this behavior comes from a system-wide text handling routine.

I frequently want to edit text, cut out or replace odd parts of the insides of words or chunks of sentences, and often find that to get a simple cursor to insert I have to click the mouse up to 4 times in succession. I've had to do a lot of this recently and it has been driving me insane.

Is there a place at the system level where this can be configured?

In a perfect world, I'd like a single click on a new text area to insert a cursor point, and a rapid double click to select the entire area. Words or text within the area could be selected by inserting a cursor, holding down the mouse button and dragging to the exact point where I want the selection to end – even if that's in the middle of a word. No, I don't need or want Windows to "smart select" a word or sentence for me. I've looked in the Mouse and Accessibility Options control panels (Windows XP). Haven't found anything even close.