If only Microsoft supported their own hardware on Windows

Register My Microsoft Mouse over the Internet now? Awesome!

Oh, 404 not found. Well, programming websites can be hard.

Let me see if my device is under warranty. Let's go to the warranty page.

Oh, they don't recognize their serial number. (For about a year, Microsoft had a "temporary problem" recognizing the serial number printed on the mouse. Maybe until the warranty ran out.)

Hey, let me try having their ActiveX control identify the device.

Oh, Internet Explorer blocked the ActiveX control because it's unsafe. No option to allow it to run, either.

When a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000 acts funny in Windows:

• continuously disconnecting and reconnecting,
• working for anywhere from 2 seconds to 20 seconds, but then breaking,
• re-installig Intellipoint, will, at best make IPoint.exe crash, or have no effet.

What's the solution? Should both pieces be tossed in the trash? Batteries have been replaced.