Slowing down the mouse

At age 91, my father finally has taken an interest in having a computer. As of a month ago, he now has a Compaq Presario laptop (model CQ60-211DX) with the Vista OS. Initially, the mouse pointer speed was much too fast for his aging hands. I was able to go into the control panel to the window with the sliding scale and move the pointer to the slowest position, all the way over to the left. But, really, even that is a bit too fast for him. (Actually, that slowest position on his machine is about the same as the midpoint position on my own computer, which has MS HP Home as an OS.) Question: Does anyone know if the speed of the mouse pointer can be made even slower than I have been able to make it. And if so, how? Remember, we're doing this for an 91-year-old gentleman! Many thanks. Rick Thurman

I'll consider myself lucky if I can still work a mouse when I get to half his age. Taking up new things as a nonegenarian <sp?> shows some rare qualities

Pointer speed is going to be a function of at least 3 things:

- The Windows slider setting.
- The mouse-specific driver, if any (you may be relying on the in-built Windows driver).
- Mouse hardware capabilities - in particular its "DPI" precision.

The first one you've already cranked all the way left, so that's that.

The second one will depend on whether you're using a fancy (expensive) mouse. If so, it may have its own software control applet where you may be able to apply additional speed modifiers over and above the OS slider.

Lastly, everything else being equal, a 2000 DPI mouse is going to move a pointer far further across the screen for a given amount of physical travel displacement than a 500 DPI unit - four times as far in fact. Hence, you might want to think about investing in a fancy mouse with configurable DPI resolution. By setting something very low like 300/400/500 DPI, you'll get much lower speeds than "normal", which is about 1000 DPI.

A few configurabe mice which came up when I searched:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/hardware/gaming/productdetails.aspx?pid=101

Logitech - G9 - Laser Gaming Mouse 910-000173 at TigerDirect.com

Razer Copperhead gaming mouse

There will be plenty more. In short, you want the exact opposite of a "precision" mouse - something which is INsensitive with low DPI. No more than 500 DPI, and preferably configurable for even less.