Best Programmable Mouse - Please Help!

[Brian in Atlanta]

I’ve scanned many threads trying to determine the best mouse to use with 6.1.1 LE on PC but still do not have a clear picture. What I am looking for is something confirmed as stable, functional, and I’d prefer a maximum of programmable buttons and wireless. (I had a Kensington Track Ball Pro which was glitchy when I was on a Mac, and is just screwed on PC. But it had 7 programmable commands (when you include the two 2-button combinations) and I really got used to the convenience.)

(You can skip this next paragraph if you don’t like pointless dead end sob stories!)

So based on the threads I figured Intellimouse Explorer was the way to go, and I bought a Microsoft package (Desktop Elite with wireless keyboard & wireless optical Intellimouse. But after hours of frustration due to a very misleading User’s Guide which stated you could program keyboard shortcuts, I finally found a thread here confirming that the new Intellipoint software 5.0 doesn’t support it. A site pointed me to the 4.12 software at Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en) which I downloaded, and does support shortcut commands, but still no luck because I discovered the wireless mouse included was an Intellimouse Exlporer 2.0 (w/ horizontal scroll feature) and that model was seemingly not supported by anything before the 5.0 software - total schizo performance.

(By the way, a friend helped me assure my uninstalls of previous software were complete as I went, with all the necessary restarts. Those who skipped paragraph 2 should rejoin us.)

I returned that to Office Depot and found a plain ol’ Wireless Intellimouse Explorer (also optical), grabbed it and put it in to use with 4.12 software. (Knit picking: The older mouse had no horiz. wheel and what seemed to me a cheaper feel not to mention the buttons made little “springy” noises at times, the right click seemed too easy to trigger accidentally, and it made a subtle but annoying “scraping” noise on the desktop. Which would have been easy to live with except….) It seemed to function fine except for one problem: the smaller thumb button wouldn’t respond to any keyboard commands entered, and the scroll wheel’s button was finicky too, certain commands - which the other buttons would accept - it just would not do.

If an exchange for another older Wireless Intellimouse would fix the problem, fine, but you know what - it still bugs me that I can’t seem to find a recommended mouse or trackball with more than 5 programmable buttons anyway (you’re always going to leave one on click, which leaves 4 commands to play with, and a progarm like ProTools really calls for more.) People have recommended various Logitech mice & trackballs, or other Microsoft products, but either they don’t specify how many buttons are fully programmable, or others report too many problems with them (Logitech). At this point I could settle for 5 buttons on an MS or Logitech if it worked, or even deal with a wired model if necessary.

If you do give recommendations, please include how many buttons can be customized with keyboard shortcut commands, and only recommend something you or someone you know has had a good real world experience with. (Sometimes people link you to a product that looks like a Star Trek prop from some company noone’s heard of, without even a personalized recommendation - trying to avoid time-wasting gambles!) Thanks.

Brian in Atlanta

[Brian in Atlanta]

One P.S. to this post: it also annoyed that MS's 4.12 software would not allow "space" as keyboard command - so no play/stop available as a button, another strike against Microsoft. When I'm recording and reviewing takes I used this a lot on the Kensington.