INF: How Microsoft Windows Uses an MS-DOS Mouse Driver

ID Number: Q74572

3.00 3.10

WINDOWS

Summary:

For performance reasons, the Microsoft Windows graphical environment

does not use the MS-DOS mouse driver even if one is installed. Windows

has its own mouse driver (usually a file named MOUSE.DRV) that handles

mouse input. Therefore, Windows applications can use the mouse as long

as the appropriate Windows mouse driver is installed, regardless of

whether an MS-DOS mouse driver is present.

The Windows mouse driver does not provide any mouse support for MS-DOS

(non-Windows) applications. You must load the MS-DOS mouse driver to

use the mouse with an MS-DOS application running under Windows. You

can load the MS-DOS mouse driver either before running Windows or in

an MS-DOS session under Windows. However, we recommend that you load

the mouse driver before starting Windows because hardware conflicts

may occur if a mouse driver attempts to initialize the hardware after

Windows has started.

The virtual device driver named VMD manages ownership of the mouse

hardware between the Windows mouse driver and the MS-DOS mouse driver.

VMD is not a mouse driver; it simply switches hardware ownership

between the MS-DOS and Windows drivers.

Additional reference words: 3.00 3.10 control