Microsoft Admits Windows 8.1 Update May Bork Your Mouse, Promises a Fix

MojoKid writes "Microsoft has several valid reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 8.1, which is free if you already own Windows 8. However, there's a known issue that might give some gamers pause before clicking through in the Windows Store. There have been complaints of mouse problems after applying the Windows 8.1 update, most of which have been related to lag in video games, though Microsoft confirmed there are other potential quirks. Acknowledging the problem, Microsoft says it's also actively investigating the issues and working on a patch."

Comments

You have to test the mouse for OS updates now?

[Joe_Dragon]

Wow just wow now what enterprise app will get messed up with other stuff in windows 8 / 8.1 that was not tested before updates?

Re:You have to test the mouse for OS updates now?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Yes, if there was changes to the way mouse handling works.

Apparently Windows 8.1 includes changes to how the mice/trackballs/etc work. Also, there's more than one way to interact with the mouse via the set of APIs available to windows developers. Some games exhibit odd mouse behaviors, some don't.

This is a huge downside to the touted "backwards compatibility." Sure you're supporting a lot of apps, but a lot of those apps certainly do things the wrong way.

Re:You have to test the mouse for OS updates now?

[mikechant]

Every time a USB drive was put in, a new device driver, and probably malware, was installed.

It's even worse than that. It reinstalls the device drivers every time you plug the *same* device into a different USB port. I'd hoped this behaviour would go away when my WinXP work PC was replaced recently with a new Win7 PC, but no - plug USB headphones into each of the 4 front USB ports and it reinstalls the drivers 4 times. That's pretty brain-dead.

Re:There is a simple fix

[FuegoFuerte]

Interesting... that feature actually makes sense, in most contexts outside of gaming. I can't count the number of times I've called my laptop bad names because the cursor jumped while I was typing, due to me accidentally brushing against the touch pad. It's unfortunate it doesn't distinguish between a built-in touch pad and an external mouse though.

Re:I told them to fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a place where a big piece of production code, a 17 year-old MS-DOS application likely written in C or assembler, was nowhere to be found. The executable form was copied and used at least 10 times a day to ship product, and yet nobody knew where the actual code was.

More disturbingly, that same place had implemented FPGA code which was programmed at the board-house, and one of the internal reasons for the big push to our latest product is that nobody now in the company understands that FPGA code, and yet as with the example before those things are used on a daily basis in a production environment. That company is a division of a big and instantly-recognizable name in technology.

One company I worked for that makes optical transceivers for your big-name optical switches/routers/etc. like Juniper used Excel as a database. No shit. The manufacturing test "database" was just one goddamn Excel spreadsheet written to by VB over Labview. I distinctly remember having to manually redraw the border lines to keep up with the resizing of the spreadsheet due to test data constantly being written to the spreadsheet.

And those aren't even the worst of my stories. And I'm just a lowly technician.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:..and mouse scroll.

[JMJimmy]

You're not kidding - things I've found wrong with it so far (less than 5 hours of use):

  - Takes 1-2 hours to install [facepalm]
  - Corrupts some Win8 Xbox game saves
  - Adds UEFI watermark which can only be removed by installing an update (requires reboot too)
  - Changes your folder/theme settings without permission
  - Changes the folders setup in Windows Explorer to promote Skydrive (ya right!) and buries everything useful at the bottom
  - Re-installs all the garbage you've spent hours uninstalling (bing/news/finance/etc)
  - Doesn't restore the start button, just adds a button to bring up the full screen start
  - Creates interface lag/"hiccuping" across all programs
  - Removes the lease offensive drop corner\
  - Enabled touchpad clicking on my mouse, despite the ELAN options showing it as disabled
  - Forces powder blue backgrounds on tiles which make reading difficult (no personalization option to change it)
  - Pins IE to the taskbar

Everything in Win8/8.1 is counter to productivity and just makes me want to switch to a new OS, unfortunately I wasn't able to downgrade this system to Win 7 64bit and I'm still not confident in Linux's ability to remain stable/repair itself easily without having to frequently re-install.

Re:..and mouse scroll.

[chopthechops]

I love the bit that says:

"In previous versions of Windows, you could get to this screen by pressing F8 before Windows started up. Windows 8 PCs start up quickly so there's not enough time to press F8."

Yeah right... Win 8 is just so fast it can't read a keypress at startup any more. Sounds like they get their marketing people to write the troubleshooting documentation.

My guess is that they officially abandoned the F8 startup key concept (even though they didn't) at the same time as they decided none of us need a real keyboard or mouse any more. This may also account for the mouse issues with the 8.1 update. Apparently everyone should be using a tablet by now so keyboard and mouse QA takes a back seat.

Seriously though, how do they manage to break something as basic as mouse operation?

Re:..and mouse scroll.

[rdnetto]

I'm still not confident in Linux's ability to remain stable/repair itself easily without having to frequently re-install.

I would say Linux is superior to Windows in that regard. I used to need to reinstall Windows yearly to keep the system running well, but after I changed to Linux the only times I've needed to reinstall it were when upgrading to the latest version of Ubuntu*, or changing distros.

Actually, the main impetus for the switch came when my user profiles under Windows got corrupted and there was no way to recreate them without reinstalling it. Under Linux, the same problem is trivial to fix - just delete/rename the home folders and everything gets regenerated.

*While you can upgrade without reinstalling, I've never trusted it after doing the same with Windows a few times ended badly. Since then I've changed to a rolling release distro, and now I don't even need to do that.