Using Win7 ultimate on a variety of machines, when I plug in a 'USB' GPS the system does two things: it installs the support for the USB-Serial device, and then it (using 'serenum' apparently) begins mistaking the GPS for a serial mouse, and 'detects'
and installs the microsoft serial ballpoint. I have editted /windows/inf/msmouse.inf, adding a line after line 28 (guessing at the syntax, copying from the alpha excludes)
ExcludeFromSelect.NTx86 = *PNP0F0C,*PNP0F08,*PNP0F09*PNP0F01,*PNP0F0A,*PNP0F1E
This does *NOT* do the trick. The GPS is consistently being enumerated by the system as a "serial ballpoint mouse".
This has been reported by numerous people in numerous forums on numerous configurations over multiple windows versions.
When is Microsoft going to fix this? This is not a GPS issue. This is not a serial device issue. This is not a USB issue. This is, pure and simple, a Microsoft issue.
Removing the 'upperdrivers' entry for serenum might do the trick, but the registry keys are not writeable now in Win7. Sweet. Thanks, Microsoft.