Windows detects USB GPS as Serial Ballpoint - please suggest permanent modification to prevent any serial mouse detection

There is a simple program to solve this problem.

http://www.stentec.com/anonftp/pub/wingps/pnpblockersetup.exe ( freeware)

Download, install, run and select available comport(s), restart and finished.

So simple and great easy tool to solve this very old Windows problem, a must have for everybody using GPS or other NMEA sources, to start-up Windows without disconnecting NMEA data source at start up to avoid a jumping mouse.

Hi TNator, I followed your advice: installed WDDK7.1, built the environment as directed in the manual and ran devcon, disabling *PNP0F09. And yes, this solved the problem of the adapter installing itself as a serial ballpoint mouse; but only "one way". It only works when I switch off my GPS and then start the computer. But if I perform the sequence the other way round, which I normally do when sailing: the GPS runs and incidentally I start the laptop, just for a check-up on my paper-chart navigation, the mouse starts jumping again. However, it doesn't install itself as a serial ballpoint mouse anymore, but under Devices it then lists itself still as a mouse, albeit as a com-port.

Obviously it is already a giant step for mankind that the connection now works if I remember to do some switching on and off for certain instruments, but the system is still not completely okay. If you have an other suggestion, I would be most grateful.

Witte Raaf

Mark & all,

This is a general problem with Windows - we have the same problem as this, but the devices are weigh scales that transmit data over serial ports.

I must emphasize to Microsoft that this is NOT a device specific problem - the O/S will detect incoming serial data on system startup, and will "decide" that there is a mouse on that port.  All that is needed is a systematic, well-documented method to prevent that from happening.

Mark - please contact me if you have any questions about this.  This is an issue I & the company I work for have a lot of experience with!

How to completely remove driver for serial ballpoint mouse in Windows 7?

As many other people I am desperately trying to get the issue with the serial ballpoint mouse in Windows 7 solved.

I edited the value "Start" in the registry from 3 to 4 in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SerMouse, and this seemed to work for a while, but then suddenly the serial ballpoint mouse driver still took over.

The facts, as apparently not everyone at Microsoft seems to understand what is really happening:

1. The USB-to-serial adapter is installed as a COM-port.
2. Upon connecting to the GPS, the mouse behaved normally, so I assumed that Microsoft had solved the problem (I encountered the same problem in all my previous XP-laptops, but could solve it easily running "comdisable-software" supplied by Microsoft).
3. After a couple of days upon connecting to the GPS again, a driver installed itself, converting my USB-to-serial adapter into a serial ballpoint mouse. Although I have disabled the serial mouse in the registry, the serial ballpoint mouse is definitely there, jumping over the screen and I can only uninstall it by doing a system restore!! I was not online at that moment, so I am convinced that there is a driver incorporated in Windows 7 that found a way around the registry.

THIS DRIVER SHOULD BE COMPLETELY REMOVED, as disabling the serial mouse is not good enough.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO DO THIS???

I feel like a sailing dinosaur now, back to the Stone Age having an up-to-date operating system but not even being able to connect my navigation software to NMEA. Come on Microsoft, you've got to do something about this, it can't be too difficult!!

I trimmed the appropriate section (from usb connect to end of log) and uploaded it to my skydrive.

The issue seems to be that once the usb to serial converter is detected, driver loaded, and com port initialized, windows then checks on the newly added com port and identifies the serial device as a microsoft serial ballpoint, when in fact its a serial gps device

The gps works if i can correctly remove the ballpoint from the device manager, but on a touchscreen in my car it is pretty difficult since the incorrect driver moves my cursor and clicks mouse buttons as the NMEA data flows over the com port. if there is no proper workaround, even a script to check for the ballpoint in the device manager and remove it would be fabulous, though a way to exclude the device from being detected at all would be best

Thanks for your time, and since i didnt see the original poster provide a log, I did.