After a PC restart, the mouse stopped working.

My first though was: faulty mouse

It was a USB mouse, so I replace it with another USB mouse… but that wouldn’t work either…

OK, lets assume its a failed USB port.

Plug the mouse into a different USB port: same problem.

And a USB drive works in the same port… so it isn’t a USB hardware failure.

Next step: Plug in a PS2 mouse, and restart the PC… but that also fails!

OK, lets look at device manager… Its a good thing that I can navigate Windows XP using just the keyboard… Its a good skill to develop 🙂

Sure enough, looking at the properties of the mouse in device manages shows an error message:

This device has been disabled. An alternative driver may be providing this functionality (Code 32).

And the solution?

Just delete the mouse entry in device manager, then restart the PC.

The mouse driver entry should get automatically reinstalled once XP restarts.