What do you do if your mouse pointer doesn't respond to mouse movement? In this tale from Blooperville, a user's logic and process of elimination says the obvious answer is to upgrade to a new, more powerful mouse pad!
A few years ago, Garry Plesha was working as the regional support coordinator for a software company. In addition to software support, his team was also responsible for hardware troubleshooting. This wasn't usually a particularly difficult part of the job, but one day Garry got a call from a frustrated user with a unique problem.
"The cursor has become disconnected from the mouse," the user barked. "Now, what are you going to about it?"
Say what?
After some prodding to clarify, the angry user -- we'll call her Minnie -- explained that the mouse pointer on the screen would not move at all when the mouse was moved. And yes, of course the mouse was properly plugged in. After having her intelligence so gravely insulted, the user began describing her own creative way of troubleshooting the issue.
The computer was pretty new and seemed to run fine. No problem there. The mouse was also new and worked flawlessly up until now. All cables were properly attached. She hadn't done anything unusual, so by process of elimination she quickly identified the culprit: the mouse pad must be worn out!
Minnie decisively ordered a sturdy, reliable mouse pad and had it express-delivered to her office. Darn! The cursor still wouldn't budge, even a pixel! By now, she had lost over a day of work and her blood was boiling. She angrily demanded that a support person come directly to her desk ASAP!
Here's what hapless Garry discovered when he responded to the urgent call: Minnie had recently received a new computer after having used DOS for numerous years. She was blissfully unaware that Windows frequently locks up and has to be rebooted.
He quickly introduced her to the "reset" button and soon the cursor and mouse were one again. He then introduced Minnie to the wonderful world of Windows and, as an added bonus, she had a snazzy new mouse pad to... uh... boot.
