Why can't I use my bluetooth mouse?

[rocketman]

I have an Apple bluetooth mouse I want to try and use with my T42. A couple of days ago I tried to pair it but for some reason my T42 won't let it. It finds it and then gives the choice of using a passkey I make up or a passkey provided by Windows but neither works.
I was able to pair my Apple bluetooth keyboard so I don't know what I'm doing wrong with the mouse. One thing I noticed, after it provides the passkey or using one I make up it asks me to enter the passkey on the bluetooth device. You can do that on a keyboard but how do you enter a passkey # on a mouse? Any ideas, it shouldn't matter that it's an Apple mouse, bluetooth is bluetooth.

[cj3209]

Why in the world would you want to use a subpar mouse on a superb notebook? I could never get that Apple BT Mouse to pair with my non-apple computers, btw.

I use a Microsoft BT mouse and it works flawlessly. It even works on Apple's Powerbooks,

[Plinkerton]

Subpar? Mice only need one button!!!

[lfeagan]

Subpar? Mice only need one button!!!

Yeah, maybe if you are from the planet cyclops and only have one eye to go with it. That has to be the only way someone could possibly get tricked into buying a <insert derogatory name for Macintosh of your choosing here, such as... (removed to protect the ears of the innocent)>.

[gcchatel]

But lance, everyone will tell you that only one button is necessary since you can just reach over and use the apple button. This was obviously not a design flaw by the apple people but a deliberate action for the users to evenly use both their hands versus overly using their right hand. By reaching over and hitting that apple key, you are equally exercising both hands. Worst design decision ever...one mouse button, what were they thinking.

Gael

[Plinkerton]

You guys are hilarious.

The one button mouse, and the Minimize, Maximize, and Close boxes being on the left, are the two things that drive me most insane about Apples

Whenever I use one at the computer store or somewhere, I realize why I don't like them...

[lfeagan]

But lance, everyone will tell you that only one button is necessary since you can just reach over and use the apple button. This was obviously not a design flaw by the apple people but a deliberate action for the users to evenly use both their hands versus overly using their right hand. By reaching over and hitting that apple key, you are equally exercising both hands. Worst design decision ever...one mouse button, what were they thinking.

Gael

That is very true, my Mac loving friends always use that as their justification. I have about 5 students who always bring their Mac Powerbooks with them. I have used Macs since the original Mac and have found that they really do make an effort to make sure that you rarely have to use the Apple-Click combination. And, to be honest, you don't have to use the right-click in Windows either. There are ways around using it. I think the idea of a single mouse button was supposed to make the user interace simpler. And, for 95% of the users I think that it does make their life easier and their computer simpler to understand. But, for those of us, like me, who were interested in their swtich from UNIX systems to OS X advertising it was a major stumbling point. I have pretty much *have* to have the middle button to be productive. Copy-Paste for the console is something which is very important to me. The other thing that really turned someone used to a professional UNIX system off was their extremelly weak X11 implementation and their lackluster OpenGL support. A R9700 isn't a whole lot of good when it only supports degree 10 Bezier curves due to poor drivers among many other things which really hold back that video card.

[ZPrime]

To answer the question rather than ranting about how [censored] apple mice are...

Use a passkey provided by YOU, and the key should be four zeros (0000). Give that a shot.

[Volker]

I have an Apple bluetooth mouse I want to try and use with my T42. A couple of days ago I tried to pair it but for some reason my T42 won't let it. It finds it and then gives the choice of using a passkey I make up or a passkey provided by Windows but neither works.

Try 0000 as a PIN. Let us know if that works. (Edit: ZPrime beat me to it... Must type faster :-)

I agree with the rest of the crowd that there are not enough mouse buttons, but still would be interesting to try. I read that apple's mouse works in bluetooth security mode 3 and I'd like to know whether thats too paranoid for some bluetooth stacks...

[rocketman]

Voila! Thanks ZPrime, you're a genius! The 4 0's worked and I'm using the mouse now. Now to answer all the disparaging remarks about the Apple mouse,I can go into a whole list on why I like Apples Bluetooth Mouse but lets just say with all of OS X's keyboard shortcuts I don't miss using a 2 button mouse at all. On top of that the Apple Bluetooth Mouse is the best feeling mouse bar none, even better than the Logitech MX700 which is a great mouse. But this is all beside the point, I don't intend on actually using the Apple Mouse with my T42, I just wanted to try it out.
The only problem is once I put the computer in standby the mouse is lost, it's still in the list under bluetooth devices but it's unuseable and I have to pair it again.
On the Mac there is a choice to "let this bluetooth device wake the computer from sleep" but I don't knw if there's such a choice with Windows.
Anyway thanks again!