Yesterday, while perusing the aisles of MicroCenter, I fell victem to the blandishments of the new Microsoft wireless desktop suite.
You've probably seen them....mouse has a tilt scroll wheel and the keyboard has a million extra buttons plus it's own tilting scroll wheel.
$99.95 US.
The scroll wheel is incredibly smooth ( no ratcheting indents) and the shape is very comfortable.
I love the touch of the keyboard ( even though I'm just an advanced hunt-and -peck typist).
What a giant POS.
I should have known things weren't going to be rosy when I installed the software..."The software you are trying to install has not passed digital signing by Microsoft".
WTF???
It's a damn MS product!
After a bit of fiddling about getting the mouse and keyboard to connect to the receiver ( no big deal, really), I was prepared to be amused/gratified by all the features promised by the packaging.
Boy was I wrong.
The mouse scroll is indeed very smooth.
In the vertical mode, that is.
Horizontal (tilt) mode...NADA.
So I go to Control Panel>Mouse>Advanced ( or some such) and see AHA! a little check box "Enable horizontal scrolling".
Silly me.
Check box.
Reboot.
Zilch.
Hmmm.
On to the keyboard then.
What are all these cool extra buttons?
"My Favorites"?
Open a dialogue box and assign each of the five keys a path...
Okay, done.
Volume? Up and down...cool.
My Documents? My pictures? My Music?
Fabulous!
They lie.
Perhaps when i hit these, someone, somewhere is getting their music muted or their My Documents folder opened, but it surely ain't me.
The scroll wheel om the keyboard ?
Zip.
Huh?
Oh boy, let's run some diglnostics.
"This device is functioning properly".
Ah, no, it really isn't.
Let's run the "Connection Wizard".
"Not receiving any signal data".
How can this be? It's actually kinda working so there must be a signal.
After all, I can type and the cursor moves...the left/right click buttons work....
Time to get out the hammer.
Oh, and did I mention that all the time I'm struggling with this that I'm getting constant error messages..."blah, blah has encountered a problem and has to close, we are sorry for the inconvenience. Would you like to send an error report to Microsoft?"
Bloody hell.
Uninstall software.
Reinstall software.
Roll back drivers.
Update drivers.
So....
Today this gets thrown back into the (somewhat mangled) original packaging and takes a field trip back to MicroCenter.
There, some wonk can either point out the incredibly stupid error I have made ( doubtful, but I leave room for the possibility) or they can cheerfully refund my Ben Franklin.
There is a lesson here, but I'm not sure what it might be.
Anyone here have this desk suite?
Does it work for you?
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