This is probably the wrong forum to be asking this question, but I'm hoping one of you can help me out never-the-less. What's happened is this: Today, my mouse and graphics card balked. Both have been working fine in this computer for several months, and I am running Windows ME. The graphics card problem was fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling it's drivers through the control panel's system properties; now that's working beautifully. The mouse is, however, giving me grief. I'm using a microsoft USB optical mouse with a scroll wheel (optical as in it works out where it is sitting via optical tricks), and windoze claims that it can see it fine and that it is working properly. I do not, however, get a pointer on my screen. After removing the mouse in system properties and installing it with th "Add new hardware" wizard, the problem remains. The mouse is obviously working fine because it works perfectly when I boot into linux.

Any ideas?

New hardware has to be connected to the USB after windows is booted. If it's connected when the PC is off, it isn't recognized by windows. (AFAIK)

RedX

and check that you don't have a transparent pointer!

Everyone except cobbs: tried that already
Cobbs: That sounded like a joke to me. If it wasn't, how?

Start->Settings->Control Panel->Mouse->Pointers

hey, if it was a joke a -> :p <- would have been involved...

cobbs: OK, I've tried that. Still standard pointers, though. Changing them doesn't give me a cursor magically appearing.

Windows ME also has an option to show a circle whenever you hit and release the control key. That shows the mouse staying straight in the middle.

Have you tried using a ps/2 mouse? I'm thinking it's either the mouse itself or your USB port. I have the same mouse (M$ Intellimouse Optical) and I have an Intellimouse Explorer and I've never had a problem with either (hell, I even painted one black)

After plugging in the PS/2 mose and rebooting as neccesary, device manager tells me that *this* device, the ps/2 mouse, is not working due to vmouse.vxd having gone AWOL. It's telling me to rerun windows setup off the CD. In any event, vmouse.vxd seems to back up the whole mouse subsystem being burghered.

Let me guess... you and the rest of the crew of the jolly roger don't own a windows install CD, am I right?

No, no, I've got a perfectly legal box, with authentic hologram CD.

It seems, however, that following the instructions of a windows OS is a bad idea. Reran setup from the cdrom, as instructed, and it made no change whatsoever.

Alright, thatz micro$soft, my suggestion is probably the one that you dont want to hear but i'd suggest you reinstall WindowsME.
Next suggestion: Dont use WinME, if you use micr$soft OS, use Win2k --> thatz what im using most of the time (except if im programming for DOS :)....

*PredeX*

Yes... Win2k is good. Stable, powerful... yummmy. But so is Unix...

The only solution I found was to format and reinstall; I don't really fancy the overhead of windows 2000.