> Help! My mouse is sick and I'm afraid it is going to die. My wife scratched around in a file drawer and found a new, in-the-package, mouse that appears to be for Windows 95. We are currently using Windows 98. Will the old mouse work? Do mice become obselete as fast as other computer stuff? This one is labeled "Microsoft MOUSE with IntelliPoint Software." Should I feed it to the cat and buy a new one?
> How"Cheap"ard

As long as it'll plug into your machine it should work fine. I have used mice that were issued with IBM PS/2 system back in the 80's as recently as last week. Mice really have not become obselete as far as functionality and connectivity go. USB and FireWire are bound to change that in the coming months/years, but to present just go ahead and plug it in. The machine may "Find New Hardware" and install either the mouse itself, or a PS/2 Mouse Port, or a Serial Mouse Port or a combination of the mouse *and* one of the other two. Just let your system do it's thing and give it the Windows '98 CD if it asks for it (most likely won't). Then use your mouse as normal. You can install the IntelliPoint software if you want. It allows you to do some neat things with your mouse pointer, but it's not necessary to have it loaded for the mouse to work.

Drac "What am I, a man or a mouse... yeah right, I'm a small hand held device that feeds Digital X-Axis/Y-Axis information to a GUI interface per coordinates derived from laser light pulsed through small, perforated wheels which rotate vertically or horizontally in response to a balls movements across these wheels' axels as a user pushes me in the desired direction." imas