My sister is visiting for a couple of weeks and I was complaining about the issue to her when she suggested I try her notebook mouse — It worked perfectly.

The fix is actually pretty simple — change the type of mouse in the IntelliPoint Mouse Properties window to something different. I now have my Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 setup as a Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. I simply chose this mouse because it has the same number of buttons as mine. Once it’s changed iTunes and Picasa scrolled correctly. Everything else still scrolls fine too (web pages, etc.) however I did find I needed to turn the sensitivity down a fair bit otherwise it was quite jumpy.

I had looked into this a couple of weeks ago and found a forum post that mentioned the same fix and there were a couple of other sites that linked to this Microsoft Help & Support article (or a similar one with the same basic fix) as well but when I tried changing mine to an earlier IntelliMouse Explorer and a couple of others it made no difference. So if it doesn’t work the first time keep selecting different types of mice until you find one that keeps all your buttons and works!

UPDATE

In the excitement of finally having iTunes and Picasa scrolling properly I neglected to test the solution fully. After a couple of reboots the mouse went back to its same old frustrating not-scrolling-properly ways in those programs. Even after a full reinstall of Windows (due to an unrelated matter) I still could not get the mouse to scroll properly no matter what I tried. On top of that, the keyboard has started not picking up all the letters I typed. Especially the CTRL and Question Mark keys.

The final solution? Buy Logitech.

My absolute final solution for these issues was to buy a Logitech wired keyboard and Logitech wireless mouse. I bought the Logitech G15 Keyboard and MX 1100 mouse. The mouse scrolls perfectly in every program I use it in and the keyboard does not miss letters typed or need a bulky wireless receiver sitting right next to it to make it work (completely negating the entire purpose of having it wireless I might add).

Somehow doing this ended up stopping Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from being able to login.

A lot of searching revealed that there are some known issues between Windows Vista and certain Routers. This has something to do with the way in which Windows Vista’s new networking stack can tune itself for the best performance. You can read more about the auto-tuning feature in this column on Microsoft’s website.

The easiest and best solution I found was to downgrade my router’s firmware back to version 3.01.25. I have been running this version successfully with no network issues at all for weeks now.

You can find Netgear firmware downloads at http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp. Consult your router’s manual for installation instructions.

If this doesn’t work for you, you’re already using that firmware, or you have a different model router, then you can try disabling the “Autotuning” feature:

1. Click Start and type “cmd” into the Quick Search box.
2. Right-click the “cmd” item that appears and select “Run as administrator” (Or hit ctrl+shift+enter). Click “Continue” in the resulting UAC dialog and a Command Prompt window will open.
3. In this window type the following string:
   netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
   and hit enter. The prompt will return “Ok.” If successful.
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter, or by clicking the close button in the top right corner.
5. Reboot your computer.

I found that disabling auto-tuning worked great for restoring Windows Live Messenger functionality but I was still experiencing some random network issues. Try the router firmware option first if you’re able to.

If you’re using a “current model” ADSL Modem/Router then continue to keep an eye on the manufacturer’s site for an updated, Windows Vista compatible firmware version.

The problem, it turns out, was having my Key Repeat Delay set too short. Due to my impatient nature I would always turn this to the shortest setting so I wouldn’t have to wait if I wanted a string of repeated keys.
To fix the issue, open up Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel) and open the Keyboard item (Select “Classic View” in the left bar if you have trouble finding it). In the dialog that opens, select the “Speed” tab and move the Repeat Delay slider one notch closer to “Long”. Refer to the following screenshot of the dialog.

I’m really not sure of why having this set short causes keys to get “stuck”. I guess that due to the nature of wireless, some interference may distort the signal and tell the OS that the key has been held down longer than it has. Making the delay a little longer will have it wait out this corrupt signal before leaving a string of characters across the screen.