[Wylug-discuss] Many Wireless Mice/Keyboards in the same room

[Paul Brook]

>     "Can't get this to work on vista. The brief says it is supported, but
> no driver, the download software won't recognise it plug it into a win7 pc
> - no problem
> 
>      No response from the Kensington email support, so useless!  ONLY BUY
> IF YOU'RE ON Windows 7"
> 
> Cripes.  There was me thinking this would be a generic USB HID device...  I
> think this says more about his Vista machine than the mouse, unles
> Kensington are deliberately making their lives hard.

I'm pretty sure this is just a user needing a good whack with the cluebat.  
I've never seen or heard of a USB mouse that wasn't standard HID protocol, or 
didn't work out the box.  I have seen tablets and some more exotic bluetooth 
devices need a custom driver, but never a mouse.

The main exception to this is if you want to be able to monitor the battery 
level.  The protocol for doing this tends to be proprietary (though within the 
standard HID framework). OTOH I use rechareable AA batteries, which seem to 
flummox most builtin battery level monitors.

Confusion arises because most manufacturers feel the need to ship their own 
"drivers".  These generally just hack windows to make the scroll wheel work 
differently, macros for additional buttons, or add other funcitonality has no 
reason to be tied to specific hardware.  It's entirely possible that this 
software is tied to a spacific version of windows.  However a good OS should 
already do all this with whatever mouse you connect ;-)

Paul