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#6204: Glidepoint / serial mouse autoswitch
If you use a serial mouse at the office, but the built-in glidepoint on the road, use one of these
handy procedures to make your notebook automatically use the serial mouse if it is present.
OPTION 1 (best): Micro International's MakeSearch 95 utility.
This utility, a mint exclusive, is copyrighted. Do not run it on any non-mint notebooks. It works
by making the Alps driver check the COM1 port for a mouse before any other port. The alps
driver then defaults to the PS/2 glidepoint if no mouse is present on COM1.
- Make sure you have the Alps Glidepoint Driver installed as noted in Tech Note 6201 or 6203.
- Download this file: mksalps.exe to your \win95 directory, or whatever other directory that you
installed Windows 95 to.
- Edit your \win95\win.ini file using Notepad (in Start/Programs/Accessories). If you installed
Windows 95 in another directory, you'll need to edit the win.ini file in that directory.
- Beside the line run=, add mksalps.exe. There may be other .exe's there already; just make
sure there is a space between each seperate .exe. If there are no other exe's listed, you will end
up with run=mksalps.exe for that line.
- Save the file and restart your system twice. Now you can plug in a serial mouse to COM1 and
use it, and it will always override the built-in glidepoint.
OPTION 2 (good): Frozen mouse.ini file.
- Make sure the Alps Glidepoint (r) driver is installed as referenced in tech note #6201 or #6203,
and delete all other mouse drivers.
- Set all the options for cursor size, mouse responsiveness, etc. to fit your requirements.
- Edit the \win95\alps\gpoint\mouse.ini file and change the mousetype= setting to Serial1.
- Click on the Win 95 Start button, then click on Programs and MS-DOS Prompt.
- Type attrib +r \win95\alps\gpoint\mouse.ini [Enter] at the prompt.
- Type exit [Enter] at the prompt.
- Restart Windows 95. Your mouse.ini file is "frozen" to always try to use a serial mouse first. The
mouse driver will switch to the glidepoint if a serial mouse is not present.
OPTION 3 (in case of emergency ...):
- This option is only to be used if you do not have the Alps glidepoint driver available.
- Delete all mouse drivers in the System / Device Manager section of the Control Panel and restart
Windows.
- Windows will detect a "PS/2 compatible mouse port." Double-click on the the System / Device
Manager listing for this device, then disable this device for the current hardware profile.
- In the control panel, add new hardware. Do not allow it to search. Add a standard serial port
mouse. Restart Windows.
- Ignore the (!) error beside the System / Device manager listing for the standard serial mouse and
the red X beside the PS/2 compatible mouse port. The system will use the Serial Port Mouse if it
is available, and switch to the PS/2 glidepoint if a serial mouse is not found.
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