Yup, I'm building a new Windows XP desktop machine, transferring across one or two bits of the hardware from the old (10 yrs vintage) machine. The mouse I use is essentially a USB wired mouse with a PS2 adaptor, so that at present it plugs into the reserved PS2 mouse port on the current (old) machine. The new PC will instead have a USB port on it for a mouse, so obviously I'll dispense with the adaptor and plug the mouse straight into that port.
 
But what should the procedure be with this USB mouse when installing the XP operating system on a bare HDD and initial configuring Windows, on the new machine? Many USB devices I've used require that any associated software should be installed BEFORE then connecting the device. This mouse uses Microrosoft Intellipoint software (which I've found useful for tailoring the functioning of the mouse) and the original instructions for it that I still have indicate that this software should indeed be installed BEFORE connecting the mouse. But how can that be achievable when installing the operating system? Is this sort of requirement automatically suspended during the session of installing the OS? Or is there something in the System BIOS that I should temporarily change?
 
Once I've installed XP and basically got things working, will it be okay to then load the Intellipoint software? Since you can't run the machine without a mouse attached, it'll therefore be a case of installing the Intellipoint software AFTER, rather than before, installing the mouse. That being so, is this likely to give rise to problems?
 
Is there a specific technique for installing a USB mouse? I know some people prefer not to bother with Intellipoint software and instead just use the mouse in plain vanilla mode but, thus far, I've had no problem with Intellipoint and find bits of it useful.