My PC mouse–itself Microsoft brand–has, twice this session, behaved erratically–although I wasn’t moving the mouse, its pointer on the screen was pushing up against edges of the screen, screwing up the taskbar and opening menus like crazy. I thought I had stopped it when I found the cord was stuck in the track for the keyboard shelf, and unplugged it from its jack on the back of the console, slipped the cord out of its path under and behind the table, and reconnected it with the mouse cord above the table. It freaked out again, briefly. Could the roller mechanism have damaged the mouse–the cord or the rolling mechanism? I may consider replacing it…
Moving the keyboard shelf in and out could easily have damaged the mouse cable so there is an intermittent short between wires. I would get a new mouse.
Mice are pretty cheap unless you are committed to Microsoft.
Q: What to do about an erratic mouse?
A: Rodent Zanex
Oddly enough, when my PC comes out of hibernation my cordless mouse (a Packard Bell, though the PC isn’t) will rapidly flick around the screen, open windows and menus and documents will mysteriously vanish, reappear and reformat themselves etc. If I stop moving the mouse then it stops happening. I have to reboot via keyboard. It’s really annoying - I changed the mouse for a new one and it still does it occasionally (I’m too busy to go to the shop atm). This OP makes me wonder wether it’s the sw and not the hw - though it never did it with my wired mouse.
Thanks to all… 
In a related matter, I’d like to know if there is a keyboard shortcut for accessing the Shut Down option on the menu from the Start button on the taskbar, in case I have another encounter with a cantankerous mouse.
Hit the windows button, which will bring up the menu. Use your arrow keys to get to “Turn off computer” and hit the enter key. That brings up the “Turn off computer” box, and you can tab to the function you want and hit enter.
In an emergency, there’s always control alt delete.
Thanks just the same, Sugaree, but my keyboard, a Hewlitt-Packatrd, doesn’t have the key called in the “Dummies” books the “WinKey.” I’ve used Ctrl+Alt+Delete sometimes, but I can’t get it to restart the computer…
Ctrl+Esc does the same thing as the Windows button, it pops up the start menu, and works on any keyboard (I hate the Windows key, it takes up room and provides no extra functionality).
Then just arrow up to shut down, hit enter, use the arrow keys to select the restart option, and hit enter.
Ugly
zoogirl opens thread, thinking “At last! A topic I know all about!”
OOPS!
Wrong kind of mouse…
Thanks, RJK.
I went ahead and bought a new mouse–an “Intellimouse,” which of course came with a CD for installation, like all computer hardware does these days. And I had to reboot the computer twice…but it sure beats a freaking-out mouse pointer opening menus and driving me nuts!
I reposted to this thread because of a mouse problem on my Laptop.
(I have not had any response to this question on the specialized computer thread.)
My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 4100, with a “touchpad” mouse. This device tends to propel the arrow cursor to the upper-right or lower-left corner of the screen, if a button is pushed, where it can shut off my programs or even the computer itself. I thought buying an external mouse (USB, optical) would correct this, but it continues intermittently. I hope there’s something under the Mouse heading in the control panel that can be adjusted to stop this…
I’ve dealt with this problem on two Dell Inspirons recently. The pointer keeps running away even if I unplug the mouse. I got it to stop by applying pressure to the touchpad, or sometimes to the handrest area just around (outside of) the touchpad. I think it’s the touchpad that’s going nuts, not the mouse. In both cases I was able to resolve the problem by just disabling the touchpad. Since I don’t use the touchpad, this solution is good enough for me.
And how do you disable the touchpad?
(I’m not being smart-aleck; I really want to know. Thanks.)
Do you have a touchpad icon in the system tray? One of mine had the icon so I just double clicked to bring up the options and selected some option that said “disable touchpad when external pointing device is present”.
The other laptop didn’t have the systray icon and I think I had to visit Dell’s site and download new drivers for it. The new drivers didn’t help with the irratic problem but they did give me the touchpad icon in systray so I went ahead and disabled it.
It might be with mouse properties in control panel.
Here are the drivers for the 4100 with WinXP. Driver for the touchpad is listed under “input device drivers”.
Grab it by the tail, take it outside, and stomp it to death with heavy boots on.
Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn’t work with XP. OP not stated
Did you try to shut down, restart?
Does/did the MSMouse self install? May be the drivers are corrupted.
The only problems I have with a Logitech cordless keyboard and mouse is having to replace mouse batteries at 2 to 3 mos. intervals.
Keyboard anually or longer.
Windows-E opens Windows Explorer (huge if you’re not into shortcuts/files on the desktop)
Windows-M minimizes all open windows, showing just the desktop.
Windows-R opens the “run” command off the start menu.
And that’s just a few that I use on a regular basis. I hate laptops/old keyboards that don’t have them. And since on most older (desktop) keyboards that don’t have a Windows key, it’s a blank space anyway (no key present), so why not have it?
More is better… IMO