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View Full Version : Win98 - Mouse is acting weird in Start Menu



Todd Burch
12-29-2005, 2:22 AM
I have an older PC I'm updating/(re)building and all was working OK. However, today, launching programs from the Start Menu started working weird. Here's the deal...

On the Start Menu>Programs>Accessories>Games flyout menus (and all the other flyouts in the Start Menu), several of the flyouts have the little black triangle pointing to the right, telling you there is another layer of flyout menu available. Hovering over these causes the next level flyout to appear. When you get to the end of the line, you click your choice and the program runs. No big deal. Except for this PC - starting TODAY sometime!! :(

Now, when I move my mouse over to the last choice of the "thread" of flyout menus, left clicking that option (like Solitaire, or Minesweeper, etc.) does not launch the program. It's the weirdest thing.

But, there's a twist...

If I left click the Start Menu, release the left button, and navigate the mouse (by hovering only) to the end choice of the thread, and then left click again to launch a program, it does not launch. (and the choice does not go away, it just sits and stares at me!)

Starting over, if I left click the Start Menu, and keep the left button held down, navigate through the flyouts to the end of the thread, and release the left mouse button on top of the end choice of the thread, (ie, Solitaire, Minesweeper, whatever), the program launches just fine.

Starting over again, if I press the Start Button on my keyboard, and use Arrow keys to navigate through the flyouts, and press Enter on the final thread choice, again, the program launches just fine.

And, starting over again, if I left click the Start Menu, release the left button, and navigate the mouse (by hovering only) to the end choice of the thread, and then left click again to launch a program, it does not launch. However, at this time while hovering over the program that refuses to launch by left clicking, while the choise is highlighted, if I press enter, the program launches!! Go figure.

It's almost as if there is an option set somewhere for the mouse to behave like a MAC.

This behaviour started this afternoon (well, I noticed it then...) after I updated my PC with updates from the Microsoft web site. (This was a pretty old version of Win98 I got on a harddrive, and I put the harddrive into a new box - long story). The more I think about it, the more I think this was happening prior to updating Windows today.

Anyone have any ideas?

I was using a cheapo 2 button PS/2 mouse and I thought it might be acting up, but I ruled that out after installing my known-to-be-perfect-working USB optical mouse off of my laptop. I had the same results.

Thanks, Todd

Vaughn McMillan
12-29-2005, 2:48 AM
This may be the obvious question, but have you gone into the mouse properties and seen if everything was still set the way you'd expect? (I'm guessing you did already, since you installed a new mouse.) Aside from that, I don't have any fresh ideas...it's been awhile since I was into a Win98 system, and I have a hard enough time remembering how to operate XP, which is in front of me for hours every day. ;)

- Vaughn

Todd Burch
12-29-2005, 2:59 AM
Yes, there is nothing in the Control Panel>Mouse dialog that references this behaviour as a choice.

Boyd Gathwright
12-29-2005, 3:03 AM
Hi Todd,

.... Well, I was going to say, take your mouse apart and clean it. Get the hair and dust out of it. Also, check your mouse driver to see if it's up-to-date. Since you have done some updating, I would also suggest running scandisk and defrag. Might check the mouse setting in the "Control Panel" as well.

Just some thoughts :).

Boyd



I have an older PC I'm updating/(re)building and all was working OK. However, today, launching programs from the Start Menu started working weird. Here's the deal...

On the Start Menu>Programs>Accessories>Games flyout menus (and all the other flyouts in the Start Menu), several of the flyouts have the little black triangle pointing to the right, telling you there is another layer of flyout menu available. Hovering over these causes the next level flyout to appear. When you get to the end of the line, you click your choice and the program runs. No big deal. Except for this PC - starting TODAY sometime!! :(

Now, when I move my mouse over to the last choice of the "thread" of flyout menus, left clicking that option (like Solitaire, or Minesweeper, etc.) does not launch the program. It's the weirdest thing.

But, there's a twist...

If I left click the Start Menu, release the left button, and navigate the mouse (by hovering only) to the end choice of the thread, and then left click again to launch a program, it does not launch. (and the choice does not go away, it just sits and stares at me!)

Starting over, if I left click the Start Menu, and keep the left button held down, navigate through the flyouts to the end of the thread, and release the left mouse button on top of the end choice of the thread, (ie, Solitaire, Minesweeper, whatever), the program launches just fine.

Starting over again, if I press the Start Button on my keyboard, and use Arrow keys to navigate through the flyouts, and press Enter on the final thread choice, again, the program launches just fine.

And, starting over again, if I left click the Start Menu, release the left button, and navigate the mouse (by hovering only) to the end choice of the thread, and then left click again to launch a program, it does not launch. However, at this time while hovering over the program that refuses to launch by left clicking, while the choise is highlighted, if I press enter, the program launches!! Go figure.

It's almost as if there is an option set somewhere for the mouse to behave like a MAC.

This behaviour started this afternoon (well, I noticed it then...) after I updated my PC with updates from the Microsoft web site. (This was a pretty old version of Win98 I got on a harddrive, and I put the harddrive into a new box - long story). The more I think about it, the more I think this was happening prior to updating Windows today.

Anyone have any ideas?

I was using a cheapo 2 button PS/2 mouse and I thought it might be acting up, but I ruled that out after installing my known-to-be-perfect-working USB optical mouse off of my laptop. I had the same results.

Thanks, Todd

Chuck Wintle
12-29-2005, 9:22 AM
it sounds like a driver issue after updating. maybe reload the mouse drivers?

Todd Burch
12-29-2005, 9:47 AM
Thanks Charles. Mouse drivers have been reloaded several times, along with keyboard and many other drivers. Here's more to the story:

(Read this like a (sad, but true) story):

<Start of long saga>

I am using an old Compaq for some side work. It is running Win 98 and it's as slooooooooowww as molasses.

I figured the processor was a dog, but I just opened 'er up and, low and behold, I have a whopping 32M of memory. THAT is most likely why it's so slow.

I took the heat sink off and popped the CPU out. It's a Pentium i200 - circa '92/'93 200 mhz. I knew it was slow, but didn't realize it was so downlevel.

I went over to my brother-in-laws Christmas Eve and he gave me 256mb of memory, and an old case, sans power supply and harddrive, to take parts off of for this Compaq. However, the memory he gave me is PC133 compliant and won't even plug into the Compaq motherboard.

So, methinks, I'll be taking the harddrive out of the Compaq and putting it into this case (500mhz, 256mb RAM). The power supply had a different plug, so I'll have to spring for a P/S. But, I should be good to go then.

Comment to Todd from Glenn:

"Some warning Todd, you will most likely have to format your hard drive and re-install your OS (windows) and applications. Your newer system will have completely different hardware and it will require more than just swapping harddrives. Yes, I would imagine that your powersupply was an older AT style while the newer one is an ATX style. The good news is that ATX power supplies for that older system should be pretty cheap. Good luck."

Thanks Glenn, yes, the newer case does say "ATX POWER SUPPLY" on the board by the connector.

Why would just swapping the harddrive not work? I've never done this before. I can fathom having to go through a bios setup to configure the new harddrive.


A day passes by...

Well Glenn, I'm starting to be able to answer my own question!

First power up with the new power supply, I went into BIOS setup. I configured the harddrive using all the info on the label. Other fields I had no information for I let default. So far, so good. Save BIOS and try to reboot...

The first bug was the boot would hang at "Verifying DMI pool data". A search on google indicated that the harddrive was most likely not configured properly. After an hour or two, I found the configuration that worked, and windows would attempt to load. But, it failed every time with a Protection Exception. It failed loading various different files, so I figured it was not the files it was loading itself, but perhaps the memory was bad.

I finally got the PC to boot up windows. Turned out 1 of the two DIMMs was bad, and Windows would not even boot with the bad DIMM in. So, I'm down to 128MB RAM, but it boots most of the time. I think this last DIMM may have an intermittent bug too.

When windows was booting for the first time, there were probably 40 prompts for "new hardware found". This, I think, is what you were referring to.

When Windows finally came up (woo-hoo!), I could only get 640x480/16 colors, and there were no other options for any other pixel modes or for more colors. The motherboard has a graphics card in it. I figured I needed the driver for that video card. I found the drivers on the internet (manufacturer's archive) and downloaded them. But, then I was stuck at how to get a 4MB+ file into the PC from my good PC. The network card I put in new machine was not even being recognized (the PCI bus was not working yet - no driver...). The CD ROM was not working (no driver). USB flash drive did not work (no USB drivers). But, the 3 1/2" floppy worked (woo-hoo!), but the file was 4MB+ and would not fit on the 1.44MB floppy. I found a utility on the IBM site called CHOPPER that would split a large file across multiple floppies and reassemble them on the target machine. I downloaded and used it and got the drivers over finally.

Then, however, even with the new drivers installed, it does not work. Windows tells me, very specifically, "There is a problem with the main graphics adapter. Fix this, and the rest will work." I think the video card is bad. (Either that, or the motherboard.)

I then started searching the internet for information about drivers. Turns out when Windows is installed, it marrys itself to the hardware it is being installed onto via it's selection of drivers for hardware it discovers. I guess I knew this, but never put it together. At install time, it builds a file called vmm32.vxd, which is a file with a bunch of specific drivers for THAT hardware, and sticks it on the hard drive. The vmm32.vxd file on my harddrive is from the Compaq machine I took it out of and looks nothing like this new machine. (Pentium versus Pentium 3, plus all the other stuff)

There is information about how to manually rebuild this driver file, but I'm about at the point that it would be less painful to reinstall Windows (which, I don't have a fresh copy of...). Even then, I'm not sure it will have all the driver files available for this specific PC - as my brother-in-law built it from scratch himself. How would that work to stat with?

Too many hours, but I'm learning a lot. In summary, it's all about the drivers...

A little more time passes by...

Well, forward progress!!

I did some more research with this goal in mind:

1) I don't have a win98 CD, but win98 is in the harddrive already.
2) I was installing a harddrive configured for a Compaq into a non-Compaq machine, and all the drivers were wrong.
3) I wanted a screen bigger than 640x480/16 colors, and wanted MORE!!

Well, I found a site that taught me how to do this. Basically, I went into the registry and deleted the entire HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ENUM key and all it's subdirectories. This is where all the hardware is registered. I figured, if this doesn't work, no biggy.

So, I did that, and on the first reboot, I went through all the popups for new hardware found. However, I had learned enough at this point to know where to direct the "find a file" dialog box to have it find drivers that were already on my system.

To make a long story short, it worked, with the exception of a small handful of drivers. Now, my screen is 32bit color and 1024x768 and looks like a CHAMP!!! Woo-Hoo!!!

Thanks for all the suggestions. Now, I'll be test driving this cavernous 500mhz Pentium 3 with 128mb memory MACHINE!!


</End of saga>

Kirk (KC) Constable
12-29-2005, 1:26 PM
This is precisely the reason that when I need a new computer, I get a new one...bundled software and all. I know several bonafide network geek types that build/fix their own and never get it right. I have enough 'challenges' without trying to outsmart Dell/Compaq/HP. But hey...that's just me. :)

Reading through your first post, it occurred to me to ask if you'd inadvertanly changed the properties to a 'right' mouse. I managed to do this one time and it very nearly finished driving me crazy. :o

KC

Todd Burch
12-29-2005, 6:20 PM
No Kirk, the right mouse button works just like it is supposed to work. And for all labeled buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes and textboxes, the mouse works fine. Hyperlinks work fine too. But, through Windows Explorer, or the Start menu, it's as if it has a setting to act like a Macintosh.

My next plan is to install a new mouse, and load up the drivers that come with the mouse. I think I might be using a Compaq mouse driver for non-Compaq hardware. Merely reinstalling the (probably wrong) mouse drivers is getting me nowhere.