WinMe problem

[JFAB199]

I am trying to help a co-worker, his 8 year old son had been playing on the pc, and last time he tried to use it the mouse no longer appears(no cursor nothing). I tried virus scan just to make sure andtried rebooting into safe mode in which the mouse works. Also when I first got it there was an error after it booted into windows, said dll error and I found a fix for it by adding a line to the system.ini file(I added "drivers=mmsytem.dll") which did get rid of the error message. I have no idea what has been done my co-worker is very pc illiterate and has no idea what his son has done and of course there is no system restore since no points have been made. Not sure what to do at this point.

 

[ggo]

do a clean install on the system. its usually the only fix when you're stumped. back-up his data first though.

 

[JFAB199]

that's what I thought but hoping someone could help, although if I put 2k or xp would keep it from happening in the future, give kids seperate account with limited rights so they can't make changes and screw things up

 

[FlailBoy]

Might not have to do an OS re-install. Go to your control panel. If the mouse has separate software (it's own driver) try to find it and use the add/remove programs to uninstall the software.

Reboot the computer and you should get the 'new hardware detected' prompt. Can reinstall the mouseware then and it might come back to life.

 

[madman22]

DONT USE WINDOWS ME. thats all i have to say, upgrade to Xp or even 98.

 

[SewerBeing]

doesnt windows make restore points automatically?? just do as said above try to reinstall the mouse drivers.

 

[SavageBasher]

I believe that is only XP.

 

[diehrd]

Is the mouse USB ? Or PS2 ? I would look in the device manager and see if tere is any issues with the hardware and do a reinstall of drivers for anything that is an issue

 

[Tebore]

I believe that is only XP.

System restore was first found on WinME.

 

[SavageBasher]

Ahh, ok. I wonder how horrible it was on that!

 

[madman22]

on WIN ME, do they have a restore point that takes the computer back to the point when WIN ME wasnt even installed on the compuer? That would be nice.

 

[JFAB199]

the mouse is a ps2 variety, it's an hp so not sure if it has it's own drivers or not, not sure if there may be a line missing in system.ini or win.ini, since it already had a problem there

 

[FlailBoy]

the mouse is a ps2 variety, it's an hp so not sure if it has it's own drivers or not, not sure if there may be a line missing in system.ini or win.ini, since it already had a problem there

Ok, then unplug the mouse, boot without it, shut down, and then try plugging the mouse back in and bootup again.

EDIT: if that doesn't work, try this:

mouse fix for ME

Seems to indicate that re-installing WinME will *not* work. Hope that helps.

 

[Asmodues]

i just skimed over this but have you done the now mandatory spyware search and remove , i remeber a while ago there was something called comet cursor that could really screw up a system

 

[k_r_i_p_l_e_r]

the mouse is a ps2 variety, it's an hp so not sure if it has it's own drivers or not, not sure if there may be a line missing in system.ini or win.ini, since it already had a problem there

yes, its called Uninstall

 

[JFAB199]

yes, its called Uninstall

?!? not sure exactly what you mean?

 

[mrgreenjeans]

DONT USE WINDOWS ME. thats all i have to say, upgrade to Xp or even 98.

Second the motion!

 

[speed bump]

To quote some guy on the Clearchannel IT list "windows ME=bugs" the best optoins are if you wan't to upgrade the OS and depending on the computer win 2000 for comps under 800mhz (ran great on a p2 333 with 128megs ram). or XP for faster computers (tried it on a p3 500mhz 394 megs ram and it sucked). If he dosen't want spend to upgrade his OS but wants an OS upgrade find a 98 cd.

 

[snafumaster]

Ahh, ok. I wonder how horrible it was on that!

very...it was one of the biggest problems with it.