Getting the mouse to work in MS-DOS

Issue

Getting the mouse to work in MS-DOS.

Cause

Without drivers the computer mouse will not load in MS-DOS

Solution

Note: This document applies to older computers running MS-DOS and not a command line from Windows, not for users who have USB mice in the Windows command line.

For the mouse to work in a real DOS environment, you must have the Microsoft mouse driver mouse.com loading in your autoexec.bat file or the mouse device driver mouse.sys loading in your config.sys file.

Before placing any information into the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys you need to locate one of those files on your computer. To locate a file in MS-DOS Type either of the below commands at C:\>.

dir mouse.com /s

or

dir mouse.sys /s

Once either of these commands are typed in you should receive a listing of what directory contains one of the above files. If you get a file not found error, try the alternate command.

Once the file has been located on the computer, depending upon what file is found, use one of the below examples.

IN AUTOEXEC.BAT:
LH C:\Windows\MOUSE.COM

IN CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=C:\Windows\MOUSE.SYS

The above two lines are examples, if either file is located in another directory you would need to substitute the C:\Windows\ for the directory containing the file.

Additional information