I cannot use my Windows 2000 desktop machine. (Almost) every time I boot it, it refuses to recognize the mouse. I say "almost" because once in a while it does. When it does, I use it, and hope that I won't have to reboot again. It seems to be random, but it doesn't work much more often than it does. Can anyone imagine what causes this behavior?

I'm writing this from my Fedora machine (which is on the same KVM switch as the Windows machine, and using the same mouse, with no problems). Fortunately, I finished up my work for the client, that required MS Word, before I had to reboot (I was installing a flurry of Windows security updates...)

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, the sixth time was the charm. Oh, did I mention that part of the ritual is making vigorous mouse motions during boot to get it to work (this seems to be a necessary, but not sufficient condition).

I'm not sure what the problem is, but there are, of course a few things to try. Is the mouse serial/PS2/or USB?

FOr serial mouse, try this:

If you look in the C:\boot.ini file you'll find a switch at the end of the "Windows 2000 Professional" line called /fastdetect, which is installed by default. You'll like this - it disables serial mouse detection! To get W2K to see a serial mouse all you need to do is to delete the /fastdetect switch.

For PS/2 mouse, check the BIOS and make sure the mouse is active. Also, in Windows go to Control Panel and Add/Remove hardware to see if the mouse is there, or hardware manager. Most likely PS/2 mouse might have a driver problem, or your mouse may be dying.

For USB mouse, on a Win 2k box, you might have to switch USB ports. Whichever port the mouse was installed to (for some reason) is the only port its recognized in.

Hope that helps.

I find it mildly ironic that Windows hardware support is coming from a guy named "Mac."

:-P

Downright frightening ain't it?

It's also possible that the port (USB or PS/2) on your Windows machine is physically damaged. I've had that happen, particularly with the thin wires behind the USB port, which are exposed on many motherboards.

Who uses a serial mouse anymore?

That would fall into the camp of. Get another mouse/computer.

I would swap mice first. If its a ps/2 mouse see if you can get an mouse with an adapter to go to the USB port. If in the USB port try another available USB port or go back to the ps/2 port.

If that doesn't work, then go into the system properties and into device manager and uninstall the current mouse driver by locating the icon for your mouse under the 'Mouse or other pointing devices' section. Right click on the mouse driver 's icon and left click on the option to 'Uninstall'. Then, to redetect your mouse right click on your computer name at the top of device manager tree and left click on the option to 'Scan for Hardware changes'. May have to use the arrow keys and then right click button on your keyboard if you have a Win95 compatible keyboard. Or go into the control panel and run the 'Add New Hardware' wizard for your computer to redetect and load the mouse drivers. In fact, you could try this after one of you failed mouse boots by using the keyboard tab, space, arrow key navigation. If after one of you failed mouse boots Windows is not able to detect a mouse or that it does not appear in the device manager listing then could indicate a hardware conflict.

If that doesn't work then see about resetting the system BIOS. Usually there is a jumper on the mainboard to set the BIOS back to defaults. Consult your documentation or mainboard manufacturers website.

Whats interesting is that you can buy a new computer now days for $249 dollars with Windows XP home edition already loaded on it. It seems that Intel and AMD have geared up another price war and we get to reap the benefits of inexpensively fast hardware.

Despite all of the above well-intentioned comments, I'll venture to say that it's a problem/limitation with your KVM, actually. But, I would need to know what kind of connections are going into/out of the KVM.

There are known issues with USB mice on PS/2 KVMs, and vice-versa, which is the only reason I mention it.

PS/2 mouse, PS/2 KVM. It works fine on my Linux machine. I guess I could try using a different port (it's a four-porter and I'm currently only using two).

Rand, based on your symptoms, I'd cut Microsoft some slack. It really does sound like a hardware issue, such as a loose connection. If it worked before and doesn't work now, or occassionally works but not consistent; I doubt the software is changing that often.