[Long Rant]

On Friday, I picked up a Microsoft Bluetooth Presenter Mouse 8000 at a very reasonable price. It's my third or fourth Bluetooth mouse so I didn't expect any problems with it, and the form factor was nice. Apparently, I was wrong.

The Microsoft mouse does not come with separate drivers. The drivers must be installed with Microsoft Intellipoint software, which lets you control some custom features on the mouse, none of which I was particularly interested in.

Still, in order to use the mouse, I had to install the software. The only problem? It wouldn't install. It would begin the installation process and then display a message indicating that there was a "conflicting program," (though not identifying WHICH conflicting software), and the Intellipoint software will remove it. At the point, the program would crash with an error about a missing module.

I called Microsoft's "Technical Support Line" and reached an ICC. I had to spend 10 minutes answering a variety of innocuous questions, which included my refusal to provide my phone number or email address, and then answering yet more questions about why I refused to provide this information. Finally, I was "approved" to talk to first-tier technical support and was placed on hold for 22 minutes. The phone was answered by someone else at the ICC and I explained the problem. He asked me if I used any other mice on the machine. As it was for my laptop, I used a lot of different mice, including Logitech. His suggestion, after leaving me on hold for 7 or 8 minutes while looking up the answer, was to remove the Logitech software. I told him I'd try that, he gave me a "case ID number" and I hung up.

I ran the Logitech "uninstall" routines which, of course, also removed the driver for the wired USB Logitech mouse I was running, rendering it disfunctional. I then used a registry cleaning program to remove any orphaned Logitech references, and tried running the Intellipoint software again.

Same result.

I called Microsoft again, waited 20 minutes on hold, gave the "screener" the case ID number, was transferred to "first tier" tech support, was put on hold for 20 minutes and then was promptly disconnected.

I called back, waited again on hold for the screener, my call was answered after 15 minutes and I asked for second tier support. I told the screener I had already wasted several hours trying to install a mouse and wasn't interested in wasting more time. His response was, "I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do."

I asked for a supervisor, waited on hold for one another 10 minutes, and then was treated to an extremely rude individual who said, in essence, "We can't do anything -- you have to speak hardware support (the same "first tier" people I'd been talking to). This supervisor had a condescending attitude and identified himself as, "Mr. XXXXXX," but kept calling me by my first name until I said, "My name is Mr. PTravel -- you're not a friend of mine." Apparently, being a supervisor of an off-shore call center commands such respect in his mind, that anyone who would call Microsoft Technical Support must be a social inferior.

He finally re-connected me to the screener who, in turn, reconnected me to the "first tier" line where I waited for approximately 30 minutes until it was answered. The "technician" who answered the phone spent 10 minutes or so with me confirming that he didn't have any answers for me in his script and then asked me to hold. After 10 minutes he returned and said, "No one here has heard of the error you're experiencing. Would you like me to refer this to second tier support?" I said yes. He took my phone number and asked me, "What 2 hour windows within the next 72 hours would be convenient for you?" I said, "What are you talking about? I'm not waiting 72 hours for an answer." His response was, "You can tell us your preference for a call back, within a 2 hour window, but we can only promise a return call within 72 hours." I gave him my phone number and said, "They can call me any time on Saturday or Sunday. If I don't hear by Monday, I'm returning the mouse." His answer: "I can only promise that you will receive a call within 72 hours."

All this for a simple mouse!!!!!!!!!!

After I concluded my 3+ hour sojourn through Microsoft's Indian technical support department, I decided I would try to solve the problem myself. I reasoned that the Intellipoint software was examining the registry when it reported an incompatible program and was crashing because it couldn't find the uninstall data because it had already been uninstalled. I did a manual search of the registry for any reference to Logitech's iPoint and Mouseware software and, sure enough, they were sprinkled throughout the registry, notwithstanding the fact that there was no Logitech software extant on my machine. I manually deleted each reference, registry key by registry key (of course I backed up the registry first and also set a restore point -- I'm not that stupid), re-booted the computer and re-ran the Intellipoint installation software. Miracle of miracles, it completed the installation!

Now, that was left was to set up a Bluetooth connection for the mouse. That worked fine. However, the mouse did not!

I went into device manager, forced a manual update of the driver, selected the Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000 driver and, finally, it worked. The last thing I had to do was re-install the driver for the Logitech wired USB mouse that I use at home -- letting it search on-line worked just fine.

And now everything works.

Total amount of time invested: 6+ hours.

Expertise required: Significant -- installing the mouse required a fair understanding of how uninstall works under Windows, manually searching and editing the registry to remove keys, forcing manual updates of drivers, etc.

And it is now 72 hours later and, of course, I have not heard anything back from Microsoft.

Does anyone think I would recommend Microsoft hardware to my company?

[/Long Rant]