June Windows updates broke wireless keyboard

[Andy Spragg]

Hi folks,

It's been a while since I posted (long story). I'm posting now so that the information is findable by others - it's better than joining loads of new forums I'll never use again just to answer individual questions. So, short version (I composed this for www.justanswers.com then found it was going to cost me $43 for the privilege of an answer):

I installed the last 10 Windows (XP Home SP3) updates yesterday (been away for three weeks) and my Microsoft wireless desktop started badly misbehaving halfway through the process. To cut a long story short, after a lot of uninstalling and cleaning up and reinstalling good old wired devices, I was able to use the computer again. Today I downloaded the latest drivers (v8.2, I had only been on v7) and reinstalled and got the same symptoms. So I am back to wired again. It would take a long time to describe the presenting symptoms in writing, and I'm not going to do that, but I'm happy to relate my experience to you over the phone if you want. I think Microsoft messed up badly here and the only reason there is not a lot more outcry so far is because it's hard to write an angry email when the keyboard isn't working, and lots of folks don't have a wired keyboard any more.

What would lengthen the post considerably is a description of what I mean by "badly misbehaving", and at the moment all I want to do is alert savvy folks to the issue. But I'm happy to expand if interest warrants. There are other folks out there with the same problem - I have established that - the difficulty is finding the right set of words to feed into Google to narrow tens of millions of hits down to a manageable number ...

Andy

[noknojon]

Hi Andy, it has been a while -

Please first try these items from M/soft and in the order they are listed - KB2686509 is usually the problem.

This was just posted on another forum with the exact same promlems, as KB2686509 deals with a Keyboard issue.

Numbers 2 and 3 are FixIt items, just follow any directions given.

1. http://answers.micro...d9?tab=MoreHelp

2. http://go.microsoft....?linkid=9812279

3. http://go.microsoft....?linkid=9812280

Regards -

[Andy Spragg]

Hi noknojon,

Thank you for replying. I should have been less lazy and included details about what I meant by "misbehaving badly". I read the content of your step 1 and thought OMG. Then I read up about KB268509 (thanks for that heads-up). However, the symptoms that are being reported are not mine. I get NO error messages and NO endless failure-to-install loops. As far as I can tell, all the updates installed "successfully". What happened halfway through installing the upgrades (and happens again very quickly if I reinstall my wireless keyboard and mouse) is the following.

The Start menu begins to flash on and off, roughly once or twice a second, just as if the Start button were being pressed and released by the mouse cursor. That makes it quite hard to give focus to anything else, but if I do manage to do that, and open (say) Notepad for demo purposes, some character keys on the keyboard produce the correct character, while others produce actions e.g. minimize the Notepad window. Other keys, notably Ctrl, do not function at all.

Note this only happens with wireless keyboard and mouse. The wired keyboard and mouse work just fine - fortunately, or I'd be completely shafted.

So I am loath to embark on the major program of step one when the symptoms I am reading about do not correspond with mine - although I agree the timing and keyboard related nature of the problems others are having are very suggestive of a link to my problem.

Andy

[noknojon]

Note this only happens with wireless keyboard and mouse. The wired keyboard and mouse work just fine.

Hi Andy -

If this is only a problem on the one keyboard / mouse setup' date=' do you think that means something ? Low power (batteries) ?

I do have another idea that you will not like - Do you have a spare, good Power Supply Unit that you can install and test ??

Have you noticed any [b']minor "flashes" or "blips" on the screen recently, not major time outs or that type of problem ??

This can indicate a failing PSU or bad connectors from the PSU. I just replaced mine for this reason -

Exile360 may jump in (I hope) with other ideas, but apart from that one M/soft update, I have not seen other similar problems.

Regards -