Microsoft Intellipoint Wireless Mouse
Microsoft Intellipoint Software (4 out of 5)
In order to run a mouse on Microsoft Windows all you need is a driver. For many basic, corded, mice nothing more than the standard generic driver is required to get 3-button clicking and steady mouse movements. However, today’s computer mouse offers more than just a way to double-click on an icon. Some of Microsoft’s advanced wireless mouse offerings have customizable buttons and other features to offer productivity enhancements and better user experience. If you want to use these higher end features, however, you need more than just a basic mouse driver.
Microsoft Intellipoint software supports, not surprisingly, all Microsoft brand mouse offerings. Intellimouse 8.0 detects which mouse model is attached to your computer and allows the user to configure it appropriately. This is a big step forward from the frustration of users who tried in vain to configure button options that did not exist on their mouse hardware.
Just as useful to advanced computer users is that Intellimouse detects when more than one mouse is attached to a computer and allows both mouse devices to be configured separately. A user wanting to use the new Arc Touch Mouse on a daily basis for most tasks, but that needs to use a more conventional Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 for specific applications, no longer needs to choose between either configuring both mice the same way, or detaching whichever mouse is not in use. Theoretically, one could use two mice simultaneously, a potential boon to the hardcore gamer set.
The best part about Intellipoint software is that it allows users to configure wireless mouse functionality on the fly without a reboot or re-attaching the mouse or wireless mouse receiver. A user who starts out needing standard functionality for scrolling up and down from the mouse scroll wheel and change over to having the scroll wheel zoom in and zoom out by just clicking the Intellimouse icon in the system tray and changing the function configuration in the utility. After hitting OK, the mouse is ready to go with the new functionality.
This ability to set the scrollwheel to do almost anything is a huge boon to law students, who change the scrollwheel to quickly access the legal decisions in LexisNexus and other services, as well as to researchers who set the scrollwheel to page up and page down rather than scroll when trying to find specific parts within 500-page research data sets.
Intellipoint Software Usage
Intellipoint 8.0 no longer supports PS/2 mice. Users with a PS/2 mouse can still download and use Intellipoint version 7 for those mice, but won’t get further updates, according to Microsoft.
Also, users who have no need for customizing their wireless mouse configuration or who do not frequently change anything other than basic settings may be able to get away with just using one of the built-in wireless mouse drivers on Windows XP or Windows 7 instead of needing to install the much larger software package of Intellipoint.
For users who need more that just click and drag from their mouse. Intellimouse software is a very useful solution.
