aggravating mouse

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I have my neighbour’s Win98SE here. One of the problems I am experiencing with this thing is a mouse that practically stops all movement when a program is loaded. It doesn’t seem to matter what program, just any application opening will make the mouse pause. The resources are in the 80 percent range. The mouse IRQ is 12 and says “no conflicts”. I’ve tried removing the mouse from the system hardware and letting it reload – getting the drivers fresh off the Win98 SE disk. And still no improvement. I was thinking of reformatting but I wasn’t sure that would help the problem.

So I finally disabled anything that had to do with the McAfee’s virus program and that seems to help my problem. Has anyone had this experience with McAfee’s interfering with the mouse? I know McAfee’s can slow down the system but I am confused with why it seems to be slowing down the mouse’s activity.

Any suggestions? My neighbour just renewed her subscription in September so I don’t know how excited she’d be with removing it completely. But anyway, I am looking for opinions and suggestions? And if removing this antivirus program is the only decent solution, that is what I’ll recommend to her.

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A mouse communicates frequently with the driver/OS. Probably just a combination of older hardware, more software running than when the PC was new and newer software making it so there is nothing you can do about it with the hardware & software involved. You might try getting newer drivers from the mouse vendor – if any are available for Win98.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Skitter

I seem to remember something similar (maybe with McAffee, maybe Norton) with one of the settings available. It’s to do with the AV checking every executable when it runs, and as Joe suggests, this “intensive” operation together with “old” everything else, slows things to a crawl. I’d try first to disable the setting, since it’s (IMO) a bit redundant on a clean machine with realtime protection.

If you decide to nuke the AV, I’d go the usual uninstall route, followed with a registry check using RegCleaner. Like Norton, McAffee spreads itself everywhere and this tool can clear all orphaned references to a particular piece of software in one go. I’d then suggest the version of AVG as a replacement. I’ve used it for years under 98SE, with no problems… and it’s far less demanding on the O/S.

Alan

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Thank you Alan and Joe,

The only place I could find to check in McAfee’s options was a choice between actively scanning all files or just program and documents. I chose the second but that hasn’t helped a thing. I believe that your suggestion of AVG might be the best choice and I’ll try it. Since it is free and if it solves my mouse problem, my neighbour may be satisfied. She doesn’t do a whole lot on the Internet, she says, except to check for her grain prices (she farms) and the current weather conditions.

I’ve never used a registry cleaner? I am guessing that I would only “fix” those entries that refer to McAfee?

Thanks for helping!

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Me again! I’ve just downloaded this program (Reg Cleaner) and I see how easy it will be to find those items that I know I’ve removed! I’ll give it a go on the Win98! Thanks Lots!!

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Glad it helped Skitter. I think your friend will be well pleased with AVG Free (as well as your efforts, of course ). In AVG there are resident shield settings, but not to distinguish between executables and others (as I’d first thought). BUT in my experience on 98, AVG is much less demanding on the system than some others I’ve tried, so hopefully this alone will improve performance as described.

Alan

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I am going to give it a try in just a bit. I’ve got to move it from my “gee whiz fast WinXP on broadband” computer to the “oh golly but connectible dial-up” Win98 . My jumpdrive doesn’t work on it so I’ve found that I can switch my external hard drive over and copy what I need to it. At least that saves on CD burning!! I’ll let you know how it goes!

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I know I’m probably too late for this and you probably didn’t search The Lounge on this question, for I’ve written about the McAfee problem a time or two here. I don’t know if I ever specifically mentioned the mouse slowdown/freeze but that’s exactly what used to happen to me back in Win98SE days and how I found the solution.

Please keep in mind that my experience is now over 3 years old and may no longer be valid. McAfee used to have a “tracking/logging” program of some kind running all the time and you can find it easily by looking in MSCONFIG. They, MCAFEE, admitted in their own forums that this program caused system slowdown and was not essential in running the virus protection program. It could be eliminated and if I’m not too late you should take a look around on the subject machine.

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Hi Al,

Yep, I did search the lounge but I didn’t find anything pertinent to mouse problems. What I did find about McAfee slowing systems down did suggest to me that McAfee might be a problem. I guess I never realized how much something like this would bother a mouse! And I’ve been to McAfee’s lounge and have a running conversation going right now with one of the Mods there. Nothing that he has suggested to this point indicated that turning off a part of McAfee’s (Ver 10) might help. As a hunch, I tried turning off just the MctskShd.exe and McAgent.exe to see what would happen and yes it helped a bit. But the response from the mouse still wasn’t what I wanted it to be.

For those that have been following and helping, here’s where I am so far. I had gone into the MSCONFIG and disabled anything to do with McAfee and then downloaded the AVG antivirus (free) program. Having it going has corrected the mouse hesitation/stoppage. Whether the accelerator change would make a difference (suggested by Liberty Raynes post 539,045) I don’t know since I hadn’t tried that. Since I have both programs on still, I could go back in and disable AVG completely, and enable McAfee to see what would happen. Curiosity, you know!! I’ll post back the results.

So far I like AVG but I need to know if it will download definitions properly and I noticed it has a program starting right at bootup that I know she won’t like so I need to find that setting. And all of this hinges on whether she wants to make the change or not!

Thanks again for the information and help! Makes doing these things more fun than struggling along by myself!

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I did go back through my old posts (and there were many) on the McAfee (and other AV software) topics. The McAfee program in question at the time was something called ALOGSERV.EXE that may not exist anymore. That’s all I can come up with.

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Hi Al,

There are several things (seven to be exact) that McAfee has running but that isn’t one of them. Too bad huh, or I might have had the solution. I did just return from McAfee’s lounge and the Mod said he would ask around about any other solutions. So I posted the suggestion that there may be something running in MSCONFIG that I could turn off and not hurt the performance of the virus program, to see what he might say.

Before I do anything else however, I need that

Thanks for the info. This is an interesting problem for me even if it is an aggravation!

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Hi Al,

Here is the McAfee thread about this. I thought it might be of interest. BTW, I want to add that I have nothing against McAfee’s products. It is probably as everyone has suggested, my neighbour’s computer does not have enough memory, etc and being an older system, McAfee is putting a strain on it. I would imagine in the newer computer environment, McAfee would do very well.

PS: To Liberty Raynes – I need to test out the acceleration theory yet!

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Hi Alan,

I wanted to report that I am pleased with AVG’s performance and uninstalled McAfee after talking with my older neighbour about the problem and solution. She didn’t care – just so the thing works! Made me chuckle. Anyway I used the registry tool but it didn’t seem to find all McAfee’s stuff? It hadn’t removed the entries in the start up files, etc. So I searched for anything “McAfee” in the registry and zapped it carefully. I still have one entry in the MSCONFIG/Start group that doesn’t show up with a search of the registry. It’s called Active Shield – McAfee.comVSOMCMNHDLR.EXE. Is it possible that I did get this deleted from the registry but for some reason the entry stays in MSCONFIG? And I know there should be another way to delete these entries but I’ve forgotten the process…….imagine that!

But considering what was going on with this computer and what I have now, I am happy with it and I think she will be to. I’ll probably return it to her later this afternoon. She misses it!! I believe she is as hopelessly addicted to them as I am!

PS: Liberty Raynes – I did try the adjustment to the acceleration level and ran McAfee (stopping AVG of course) and the mouse was back to its same old tricks – very slow responses until programs were completely loaded, etc. So that was the clincher for me – McAfee was history!

Thanks for all the help!!

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Hi,
Glad you figured out that MacAffee was the problem. If that entry is still showing up in MSCONFIG, you can navigate to HKEY_Local Machine>Software>Microsoft>Windows>Current Version>Run and zap whatever MacAffee still has in there. Or, you can use the MSCONFIG utility, or you can use TweakUI. Again, glad it’s resolved.
LR

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Hi LR – How do I delete the entry out of the MSCONFIG utility?? I should know but I haven’t seen the way to do it. I’ll also go through to the area you indicate and see if the entry is still there. I’ll be back in a sec……..

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Look at the post above your last one. That’s the path in Regedit to the programs that run at startup, and show up in MSCONFIG. Delete the key in question, and MSCONFIG won’t show it anymore.

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Hi LR,

It isn’t in there, or in the run once or any of those areas?? I know when I ran the search terms through the registry nothing else popped up having anything to do with McAfee or Active Shield or VSO so the entry shouldn’t be in the MSCONFIG/startup group, but it is. Crazy! I have to be missing something some place but I don’t know where or what.

Thanks!

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It could be there, but it’s unlikely, since it’s a part of the MacAffee virus scanning engine, and should run regularly when Windows starts. Do you still have a directory called VSO on the computer? It may still be there due to a partial uninstall; if so, that’s where the file is. Delete the directory. Have you rebooted since you uninstalled MacAffee? If not, do so.
Added: Just reread your post, and found that you DO have a VSO directory. Have you done a Regedit search for the file, deleting each entry that it comes up with? – Sorry about ending that sentence with a preposition…

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Hi LR – I end lots of my sentences with prepositions. I haven’t figured out how to do otherwise! English wasn’t my best subject in school!!

Anyway, my neighbour lady really was hoping I’d get the computer back to her so she could play solitaire so I took it to her. I plan on visiting her next week one day and I’ll check for the VSO folder or in regedit again when I do. I may have seen it there and not recognized that it was the right key to delete. There were several keys/entries that came up when I used “VSO” as a search term. I don’t believe they all belonged to McAfee.

Oh and yes, I have rebooted several times since uninstalling McAfee but that didn’t remove the entry.

Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be bothering anything, I don’t think, it is just an annoyance to me. I also want to be certain that AVG is updating itself properly. And I have a feeling she’ll be ready with questions too.

Thanks and I’ll post back once I’ve taken another look at “the beastly computer”!

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Hi Skitter

Glad it’s shaped up well for you. WRT the MSCONFIG entry, I’ve found that some of these entries can be really “sticky” in 98. You could try grabbing the utility I mention in the thread Cleaning out ‘pesky’ registry entries, which appears to target that specific irritation. It will fit on a floppy, so you could take it over to your friend’s and run it there.

Sounds like you’re all under control though!

Alan

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Just curious: did you try moving the graphics acceleration slider to the left a notch or two? Often, that cures mouse problems such as your neighbor’s. Display Properties>Settings>Advanced>Performance>Hardware Acceleration. It is set all the way to the right by default (full acceleration), but if your neighbor isn’t a gamer, he or she probably doesn’t need full graphics acceleration. Moving the slider to the left a notch or two should help, unless the problem IS with MacAffee, as others have suggested. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a combination of old hardware, new programs, and not enough video memory. In that case, lessening the acceleration should help. Good luck.

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