Startup Problems After Microsoft Mouse Driver 8.0 Is Installed

ID: Q77392

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Mouse driver for MS-DOS, version 8.0

SUMMARY

After installing the Microsoft Mouse version 8.0 driver, your system may hang during startup.

This problem may be caused by an out of environment error, although no error message is displayed. The problem may also be due to the PATH statement being too long.

MORE INFORMATION

During setup, the Microsoft Mouse 8.0 driver installs the following three lines to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file:


   Mouse                         BallPoint Mouse
   -----                         ---------------

   SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\MOUSE      SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\BALLPT
   SET mouse=C:\MOUSE            SET mouse=C:\BALLPT
   C:\MOUSE\mouse                C:\BALLPT\mouse

Environment Problems

The "set mouse=" line uses environment space, and if insufficient memory is available, the system stops (hangs).

If you have insufficient memory available, do one of the following:

Remark out the "set mouse=" line. For example:
```
      rem set mouse=c:\mouse 
```
-or-
```
      rem set mouse=c:\ballpt 
```
NOTE: If you choose this option and Windows is on your system, the MOUSE.INI file MUST be under the \MOUSE (or \BALLPT) subdirectory.

Try to increase the environment space by increasing or adding the following line:
```
      shell=c:\dos\command.com c:\dos\ /e:256 /p 
```
Where /e:nnn is the environment size (32K maximum). In this example, COMMAND.COM is found under the DOS subdirectory.

After doing either of the above, reboot the system.

PATH Statement Problems

If the PATH statement is too long, it causes problems with the system during startup. The PATH statement can have a maximum of 128 characters

Edit your PATH statement as follows:

If the system hangs, boot from drive A with an MS-DOS boot disk. If you don't have an MS-DOS boot disk, press CTRL+C during startup to break out of the system startup (AUTOEXEC.BAT) before it hangs. This needs to be done at the correct moment, so it may take a few tries

Once the system is up, go to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and do one of the following:
- Remove the mouse from the PATH statement. Removing the mouse from the PATH will make the mouse accessible only from the mouse subdirectory. For example, with the mouse in the PATH, the MOUSE OFF command can be typed from anywhere in MS-DOS. Removing it means that MOUSE OFF can only be entered while in the mouse subdirectory.
- Append the Microsoft Mouse PATH statement with the SET command rather than including it at the end of the PATH statement. For example:
```
         SET path=%PATH%;C:\MOUSE 
```
  -or-
```
         SET path=%PATH%;C:\BALLPT 
```
  NOTE: The original PATH must still be fewer than 128 characters. The appendage and the PATH, collectively, may be over 128 characters.

Reboot the system.

Additional query words: locks stalls freezes 8.00 noupd

Keywords :
Version : MS-DOS:8.0
Platform : MS-DOS
Issue type :