Hi, I had a very similar problem myself in win98 not too long ago.
The mouse was doing all sorts of weird things, including opening up things
all over the desktop, and shutting the computer down via start/shutdown, as
though it was being done manually.
I tested for viruses, trojans, everything I could think of.
I keep my temp. files to a minimum also.
I also cleaned out some stuff via msconfig (startup)
This was a relatively new mouse, but eventually I changed it, and the
problem seemed to go away. (until a few days ago)
Today, when I started the computer, it didn't detect the mouse, so I
restarted and it's been fine. This happened before with the old mouse
occasionally.
Maybe a problem with the ps2 port? I'm starting to wonder.........
this might give you some ideas to follow up, but I will let you know when
and if I find out what exactly the problem is.
Your problem does sound extremely similar to mine though. Let me know if you
do find the solution, and vice versa..............(it's a pain at times)
Michele Sayer.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has run across this situation:

A customer running W98SE has had sudden bad behaviour from her mouse.
Resting the pointer on any box with a drop-down option (say, like msconfig)
results in an uncontrollable scrolling of the drop-down contents.

At first I thought this was a damaged mouse (a serial mouse) so I replaced
it with a new PS2 mouse.  The same thing occurred.

She has an up-to-date Norton AV but, just to make sure it wasn't a gremlin,
I ran a virus checker in DOS.  No bugs.

So I rebooted into Safe mode - which removed the problem.

Hmmm.  So it would appear that something is running in Windows which is
hassling the mouse.  Or maybe the Windows inbuilt mouse drivers have been
damaged, ie mouse.vxd or mouse.drv?  But I would have thought these drivers
would also be needed in Safe mode?  Which doesn't explain why the mouse runs
ok in Safe mode.

I also cleaned out a heap of startup stuff via msconfig, as well as cleaning
out all the temp files I could find.  She has plenty of hard drive space.
So I'm a bit baffled.  Suggestions would welcome.

Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
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