I had to buy a new mouse today. Since I don’t like wireless mice, and Best Buy had a sorry selection to begin with, I wound up with a Microsoft Comfort Mouse 4500.
This thing has buttons on the sides that I neither want nor need. I want them disabled because I keep accidentally clicking them. The one on the right is the main problem - it’s located right where my ring finger rests, so pretty much any time I move the mouse I click the damn button. Whoever designed this should be shot.
I’ve been searching the 'Net, and the only way I can find to disable these buttons is to have Microsoft’s Intellipoint software installed. I don’t like this option, because I’d really rather not have an unnecessary program running in the background at all times.
I’ve got the software installed, but if I kill the process the buttons are no longer disabled. And if I run the control panel mouse applet it runs the Intellipoint program again.
This is ridiculous. Is there any other way to disable these stupid buttons? Something in the registry, perhaps?
My old mouse died on me, so it was sort of an emergency situation. Otherwise I definitely would’ve gone through Amazon.
Intellipont takes up about 12K of memory. No, it’s not much, it just irritates me that I should need to have it constantly running when all I want to do is disable buttons.
It’s the driver for the mouse. It is always running. You could try installing a generic two button + scroll wheel mouse driver, but I don’t know where you’d find one. XP might still include one; Vista + 7 don’t.
I also find it very unlikely that a generic two button + scroll mouse driver doesn’t exist in Vista or Win7. How the heck would all these mice that not only depend on that driver, but don’t provide their own, be able to claim that they are 100% compatible?
Heck, I love that we are moving away from proprietary drivers for basic peripherals.
Well, most modern mice use the HID stuff, which bypasses the issue. The problem isn’t that Vista doesn’t have a generic driver; it’s that it’s advanced enough to see all five buttons. If Vista/7 does have a two button-only driver, I can’t find it.
This attitude (“I’ve got a program that does precisely what I want, but I refuse to use it for some weird philosophical reason”) always strikes me as a bit silly. It’s not “an unnecessary program,” it’s performing a service for you that you want to have. And it’s a bloody mouse control, for Og’s sake, it’s not like it’s using your 98% of your CPU to take over alien motherships or something. You’ll never notice that it’s running, except that the mouse will work the way you want it to.
How about putting a little dollop of glue on the button?
Although I second the point that there is really nothing wrong with the Intellipoint software. All it is really doing is acting as an alternative to the generic mouse driver built into the operating system, and providing a friendly interface to it. You are not really running another background program, because you were already running a mouse driver.
Intellipoint is an executable, not a driver. It is a separate, optional program that runs on top of the driver.
sigh
I shouldn’t have to have a special program running in the background, taking up memory, in order to perform a basic function like disabling buttons on my mouse. If I wanted to configure the mouse to work in different ways with different applications (which is what Intellipoint is meant for), and I was bitching that I didn’t want to install the software, then you would have a valid point. But that is not the case.
Disabling buttons on a five button mouse is hardly basic. A standard mouse only has two buttons and therefore mouse drivers typically cater only for two button mice. If you have a special mouse with extra buttons then you need to use the special program to control it.
Yes, Intellipoint is an executable, but it performs the same basic functions of a driver, and thus is usually labeled as one. Heck, mouse drivers were originally executables in the first place.
And, yes, on the software side, your only hope is a driver that can accomplish what you want. Complaining about it isn’t going to change that.
You’re only other real choice is to somehow hack the driver or create a new one yourself. I’d say running a program is easier.
Intellipoint… driver or executable, does it matter? To the system, it’s all just CPU cycles and RAM anyway. And not an awful lot of either.
OP, I understand exactly how you feel; I try to run a lean, clean system myself and every unnecessary background process bugs me to death. I’ve sacrificed more functionality than I care to count just to give myself the appearance of speed.
But that’s the thing… it’s just an appearance, I’ve come to learn. Some things simply don’t slow down the system all that much, and I believe Intellipoint is one of those. You probably won’t notice it past the first few days, especially if you configure it to not show anything in the tray and such (not sure if it does by default).
Most importantly, there might not be another way short of writing your own hacked driver or finding some secret registry setting (I couldn’t). Something’s gotta give.
Yes, exactly. It seems like with every single little piece of software or hardware I install, the publisher or manufacturer feels the need to install some memory-resident program, and 99% of the time said program is totally unnecessary. So every time I install anything, I have to find and disable this garbage. It’s an ongoing battle that is getting really old. Hence my wariness over Intellipoint. I have no use for this program, other than to disable my buttons.
Yeah, you’re right. It’s become clear that my choices are to live with Intellipoint or live with constantly clicking the damn side buttons and messing things up. I guess it’s gonna have to be the former.
There’s no way to win. If Microsoft made this functionality part of the OS, people would whine about all the “bloat in Windows from it.” If they don’t, then it’s “basic functionality that requires ‘special’ software.”
The same people will argue both positions. Loudly. Intellipoint is exactly the right way for this to be done: the software for the device comes with the device.
The truly evil button is the one on the side that your thumb constantly accidentally hits, taking you back one page. I have one, and it was so annoying that I replaced it with a cheap Inland mouse.
Is there any chance that you can reprogram the buttons without running Intellipoint?
This could also really help gaffa if it isn’t already done or impossible.
If it’s possible (or even if you find you have no choice but to run Inetellipoint), try changing the buttons’ functions to something less dramatic and possibly more useful–copy and paste are great tools to have, and it’s the infrequent situation in which a mis-placed copy or paste could cause a problem (thought there are some).
In all sincerity, trying it with different functions may be a good idea–you may find you like having the extra functionality. I use a Logitech MX-610 (and since they discontinued it, I have three unopened ones in a box). It has twelve buttons, all of which I use a lot. For example, when working in Word, I have left/right/middle/copy/paste/volume up/vol. down/mute/paste unformatted/find/save/custom Word macro. Other programs are specialized accordingly–I can even game with it and bind jumping, flashlights, weapons, or whatever I want to various buttons.
This may not be for everyone, but if you can’t get rid of the functionality, perhaps trying a different approach than the one MS selected for you could be an option.
