Have you gone to the mouse control and reset the pointers? Click Start, Control panel, Mouse.

Sometimes crud can form on the base of your mouse, have you tried cleaning that off with a damp - not wet - cloth. Perspiration from the wrist and hand can stain the mouse pad causing the erratic mouse movements at times. My latest mouse pad is white so it is showing very clearly.

That was my first sign of trouble before my computer crashed. Never found out what the problem was.

I did clean it. I shall try to change a setting on the mouse. And stargazzer you have really caused me concern now. Perhaps I should begin backing up stuff.

You may just have a corrupted driver or a mouse going bad. Delete the driver and reboot the computer. XP should find the right driver and reinstall it automatically. You could also try a different mouse and see if it has problems or not.

I doubt this problem is a symptom of a failing computer, especially since the mousepad continues to work, but this should be a wakeup to backup regularly. Often, when a hard drive crashes, there are no warning signs and then it's too late to be thinking about backups.

Kudzu, thank you. Do you mean the whole program, Intelli Optical mouse 6.1? Otherwise I have no idea how to delete the driver.

Go to "My Computer" (usually an icon on your Desktop) and right-click on it. Choose Properties, click the Hardware tab. Click the Device Manager button. Down the list there is a line that says "Mice and other pointing devices". Expand that tree by clicking the + sign. Now right-click on the entry for the mouse that's acting up and choose "uninstall." Then reboot. Don't worry. Windows will detect the mouse during reboot and should install the correct driver.

kudzu, thank you very much, it apparently worked. I followed your directions this AM and this is the second time on the computer without mouse problems.

this may be a good time to look into creating a back up strategy for your computer. Backing up your data only or getting an imaging program and backing up everything including your operating system, which is the safe way to go.
never wait till it is too late. There are even free image software available.
DriveImage XML

ravencajan, does this program babk it all up to a CD?

eandhl-
Glad it helped, and thanks for the feedback. It's always good to know when something works.

kudzu, I may have spoken to soon. About 9:30 PM I was shutting down and the mouse went again. It is okay so far this AM.

How old is the mouse? Can you borrow a similar one from a friend? That way, if you continue to have problems, you can switch between mice to see if it is a defect in your mouse only or it's a software/driver issue that affects all mice of that design.

hum I replied and my reply disappeared oh well,
you can back up to cd/dvd, external hard drive, flash drive there are various options you may use for your back ups.