Wild guess? I would look at software first, because you don't say win95 is
displaying the "I can't find a mouse, attach one now and click okay"
dialogue it usually does when a mouse is installed in device manager, but is
absent or broken.  I would force a safe mode start of windows, which should
load a generic mouse driver, so that you can see what is in device manager
with a working mouse.  Alternatively, I have used the keyboard to access
control panel, install new hardware, and made win95 search for the mouse.
both methods have worked for me when users replaced ps2 mice with serial, or
vice versa.  I can't remember ever having a hardware failure, but I suspect
windows would say "here is a driver, here is a port, (in device manager) why
don't i have a mouse?" and immediately display the aforementioned error
dialogue box.  If you still had a failure after that, I would think about
hardware.
One last thing, since you mention novell, check config.sys, autoexec.bat,
and any other way a driver might load before windows, and see if anything
changed.  You might have a resource conflict.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Cindy Meyer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 11:08 AM

I have a Compaq Deskpro 4000 running Windows 95 and the Novell 3.2
client.  When the user booted up the computer this morning, there was no
mouse pointer on the screen.  I swapped the mouse with a different one
and rebooted the computer only to have the same result.  Is this a
hardware issue with the Compaq or is it a software issue with
Windows95?

Cindy Meyer

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