Windows 7 compatibility

Mark, Thanks for the reply.

Outlook: I am using Outlook from Office 2007.

Mouse: Batteries in keyboard and mouse are fresh alkaline. Wireless receiver is within one foot of devices. I had used this exact setup for a few years without problems, while running XP.

There are two side buttons on the mouse, in addition to the left- and right-click buttons (plus the wheel button).

If I go to "Mouse" from Control Panel, I now have no options presented for configuring the side buttons (but did under XP). Also, the mouse is a little sluggish even with the speed at fastest setting.

Thanks again,

Vince

Sounds like you either didn't install the mouse drivers, or something didn't go correctly with the installation. I'd either try reinstalling, or just installing for the first time, since you only said you downloaded the drivers, never that you installed them.

Also, just a little FYI tip. Radio based communication is kind of a funny thing. There's a sort of dead zone when you're really close to the transmitter. You should probably think about moving the receiver unit a little further away. I'd say 6" or so should be fine.

Another tip... Be VERY careful using Outlook, because it's VERY easy for you to become infected with some kind of virus or worm, not to mention it's very easy for spammers to target you when you use Outlook. If you don't need it for work or something, I'd suggest dumping it post-haste. There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other email programs out there to choose from. Odds are you can find another you like.

Jimmy,

Thaks for the reply.

The receiver is where it was for a couple of years when everything worked OK, so I don't think it is overload. As I said, the keyboard works fine.

After downloading the update for the set (keyboard and mouse) I was asked if I wanted to "Run," and I said yes. I presume that that meant that I was instaling the update. (The keyboard started to operate normally after the update.)

An on-line test via Microsoft says that there is no 64-bit compatibility issue with the mouse. (!)

The whole thing is irksome.

As to Outlook vulnerability: Googling "Outlook Vulnerability" only turned up notes from MS that date back several years. I didn't see any rants by disgruntled users.

I have been told by another person that Outlook is dangerous. However, I have a computer at work at an Army Electronics R&D Lab, which uses Outlook as the e-mail client. The network serves many hundreds of subscribers and there has never been a successful intrusion.

Now, granted that at home I don't have an IT staff to protect me, I'm guessing that the right protection software should do the trick?

That said, what e-mail programs are safer? (I was infected while using MSN, which I don't like and is the main reason I went to Outlook.)

If you have read this far, thanks very much.

Vince

Difficult to say, but if this is a Microsoft keyboard and mouse setup, there's separate software for the mouse and keyboard that needs to be installed.

As for Outlook, the primary problem is that it uses Internet Explorer to display all messages. So you're subject to some of the issues with Internet Explorer even if you don't otherwise use it.

Outlook also does a number of things that make the life of a spammer a lot easier. Like loading remote images in emails. You can embed a special code in the image that tells the spammer what address that message was sent to. As soon as you open that message, the spammer then knows that your address is "live". There was also recently a number of phishing related issues with Outlook, where it was trivially easy to mask a link in an email to look like it came from somewhere else. So if you clicked on that link, you would be directed to a site that might look like it's from PayPal, eBay, or some bank, but not. And for all intents and purposes, the link would seem to be perfectly fine.

I also bet that if you ever chatted with some of the IT people off the record, they'd express their desire to use something other than Outlook. I'm sure it's a real pain in the **** for them to have to support. A lot of times, those of us in IT are left trying to make the best of bad decisions made by people above us.

And personally, I prefer not to have to rely on software to protect me. That, to me, is the wrong way to approach the problem. Instead of being reactive, I prefer to be proactive. I choose programs carefully, so that there's fewer potential avenues of attack to begin with. Rather than relying on software to clean up after me, I'd just as soon not make a mess in the first place, because software will not catch everything. There's always a gap between the time some new threat is devised, and there's a working counter-measure in place.