>>>>Microsoft, although I'm not certain of the procedure to get them, since the Intellipoint drivers come with MS rats and are not downloadable from any of the free web pages AFAIK. The latest driver set in the retail MS packages for their wheel mice seems to work fine. I suspect that if you've registered your MS mice with MS, or got them with a system from someone like Dell, you can go to the vendor or MS and get an update.
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>>>Do Microsoft Natural keyboards also have to be registered?
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>>I don't know; if they include drivers that you'd otherwise have to pay for, I'd assume that they differentiate between owners and non-owners in some way.
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>Just wandered how far can this registration frenzy go. Once I had a Microsoft pencil, but since I used my proprietary driver (right hand, sometimes left hand), I never thought it may be registrable. Anyway, I didn't receive any PUID (pencil UID), EULA, disclaimer etc.

Dragan, you may not be happy about this, but if there's a distinction made between legitimate owners and others, they need a mechanism to identify their customers from non-customers. The MS Wheel Mice will work fine with standard mouse drivers; MS provides extra functionality with their Intellipoint drivers. There are two legitimate ways to get them - buy an MS mouse that comes with them, or buy the Intellipoint drivers.

MS is under no obligation to give away the Intellipoint drivers to people who didn't buy them, any more than they should give away Visual Studio to non-owners. There are a couple of ways to ensure that the updates only go to legitimate owners. One is to register your purchase, and based on a registration number or other identifier, gain access to an owner download page. I don't see you bitching that people who didn't buy Hacker's Guide To VFP 6 can't download the on-line copy of the book; you need a userid and password to access the download. Sounds like you need to be a registered owner. I don't see a difference.

You can live without the Intellipoint driver. AFAIC, no serious developer doing VFP6 can live without a copy of the Hacker's Guide. Are you going to get annoyed and disgusted with Hentzenwerkes because they won't give away the files, too?