I am trying to figure out how to disable the two extra buttons on a 5-button mouse. The mice are from Dell, the two extra buttons are on the side of the mouse (on the left) for thumb access, and they work as forward/back buttons in the browser.
I need to disable the buttons, or at least the forward/back functionality for them, and I've been scowering all over the internet and google to no avail (Nobody else seems to want to downgrade their hardware - what a surprise). Does anyone else know where I might be able to go to find help for this, or perhaps any of you might be able to help?
The properties for the mouse don't have anything in them for the extra buttons, though they do list the drivers used for the mouse. That got me thinking; would it be feasible to downgrade the drivers so that the system doesn't know about the extra buttons?
Thanks in advance for any help.
ID:183303
 Aug 29 2007, 7:30 am
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Find out who really makes the mouse, and see if they have drivers, or see if Dell has drivers for that mouse. I have a Logitech mouse with more than 5 buttons, and the two side buttons I have set to forward and back track on Winamp. I use Firefox with mouse gestures so I don't need forward and back buttons.
Chances are, that 5 button mouse is really made by Logitech or another major mice maker. | |
RedlineM203 wrote:
if there's space below the buttons for your fingers to go, use it.Thats all I can say, but its helped me for ages. If it were just for me, there would be no problem, but it is for work at the college. The program we use for placement testing is browser-based, and the forward/back commands screw up the program. We tell the students not to use those buttons during testing, but plenty of people still hit them by accident, which then disrupts the test-taking. So, unfortunately, that is not an option. | |
Loduwijk wrote:
If it were just for me, there would be no problem, but it is for work at the college. The program we use for placement testing is browser-based, and the forward/back commands screw up the program. We tell the students not to use those buttons during testing, but plenty of people still hit them by accident, which then disrupts the test-taking. Can't you just make the browser-based program not suck? Maybe it could be made so that back/forwards works, or so that all action happens on a single page. Worst case is you might be able to use javascript's location.replace() function for page navigation. It prevents the addition of history, so no back/forwards can occur. | |
<s>The mouse is standard HID-compliant, so the drivers that the mouse is using are the defaults created by Microsoft.
I had assumed it might be made by Logitech as well, so I tried looking at both the Dell and Logitech websites, and both claimed they knew nothing about the model number printed on the mouse.</s> The problem has been remedied. Thanks much. | |
Sure, if I made it then it would, as you put it, not suck. I despise setups such as the one we have. Unfortunately, the college makes political answers, not sane answers. There is a lot of stuff around here that I would like to unsuckify, but we can't unless we get the ok from higher up, which in many cases (such as this one) doesn't come.
As another example, my suggestion was to just get the old mice (still optical w/ scrollwheels though) back out that didn't have forward/back buttons and use them just in the placement testing room. But, of course, politics dictates that the newer mice are better and therefor stay, even if we have to disable the newer buttons, making them essentially 3-button mice anyway. Either way, it's fixed now. The extra buttons are disabled. Well, not technically, which is another humorous short story. Disabling the buttons didn't work, but mapping them to submit a keystroke which didn't do anything worked. Thanks all. | |
Ah, those things are a bitch. Mine is actually from Microsoft.. either way, if there's space below the buttons for your fingers to go, use it.
Thats all I can say, but its helped me for ages.