Wireless mouse & low battery notification

[Michael T.]

I have the following Microsoft wireless mouse.

Mouse Type: Microsoft Optical Mouse 2.0A
Device Manager Description: Microsoft USB Wireless Mouse (IntelliPoint)
Control Panel (mouse applet): "Mouse Properties" dialog includes battery
status

If I go to Control Panel > Mouse > Wireless (tab),
there is a display for the battery status (2 AA batteries)

My question is the following.

Is there a way to indicate low battery status elsewhere?

For example, in the Windows Task Bar or System Tray?

I am sure you will agree that it is problematic to have to keep going back
to the Mouse Properties dialog box to check the status.

Typically I do not know the battery status needs to be checked until the
mouse stops working. Of course then I am in a Catch 22 because I need mouse
cursor control to get to the Control Panel applet (and Mouse Properties
dialog box).

But perhaps this is my only option.

Any ideas?

Michael T.

 

[CLW]

Mine pops up a box notifying me it is time to change the batteries.

 

[Michael T.]

Mine pops up a box notifying me it is time to change the batteries.

Thank you for the feedback as it motivated me to research this further.

For example, I removed the batteries to see if the 'battery status'
indicator changed.

IT DID NOT.

(Note: This battery status indicator appeared after I installed Microsoft
IntelliPoint 5.5, which is used for a wide variety of mouse and keyboard
devices.)

So I am wondering if my Microsoft Optical Mouse 2.0A (model 1008) does not
indicate its battery status to the USB port via the Wireless Optical Mouse
2.0A Receiver.

I sent e-mail to (e-mail address removed) to try and get a confirmation.

 

[Michael T.]

I have one question for you: after installing the Intellipoint 5.5
software, do you notice any screen flickering at all? Each time I go into
another application, the screen flickers and it's driving me nuts.

Not exactly, but while experimenting with uninstalling and reinstalling the
aforementioned software there was a point where the web pages and Word docs
started scrolling uncontrollably.

I rebooted in Safe Mode, followed by rebooting in Normal Mode and all has
been OK the last 24 hours.

(Note: After uninstalling Intellipoint 5.5, my wireless mouse did not appear
to lose any of the functionality that I use. I do not use it for horizontal
scrolling. Weird huh?)