How to navigate PC without a real mouse?

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My new Hytech optical mouse just stopped responding yesterday. Scroll wheel, left and right click were functioning fine but mouse cursor was not moving at all. So I tried fixing by opening the mouse but the condition worse, my Windows XP was unable to detect the mouse. I tried installing and reinstalling the driver but all went in vain.

Since I did not have another mouse, navigating through web browsers and just about everything was painful. But thankfully Windows XP is equipped to help you when this issue arises. You can use Windows MouseKeys and you can move the mouse cursor with the use of the NumPad. To use the MouseKeys, you would need to simultaneously press the left ALT key, the left SHIFT key and the NUM LOCK key.

mouseemul1

Numbers 1 to 9, except 5 will move the mouse down, up, left, right and diagonally.

Keypad 5 – Single left click
Keypad + – Left double click
Keypad – – Right click
Keypad * – Both left and right click.

You can adjust the speed of the cursor movement through the MouseKey’s settings.

mouseemul2

You can even download the Mouse Emulator which does this job more efficiently. Once downloaded and extracted, you just need to run the mousemu.exe file and turn on the Num Lock for it to work.

The program recognizes the following keys: (NumLock must be ON!)

Keypad 1 – Left mouse button
Keypad 2 – Right mouse button
Keypad 3 – Middle mouse button
Keypad 4, 5, 6, 8 – Moves the mouse left, down, right or up respectively.
Keypad 7 – Mousewheel up (Scroll)
Keypad 9 – Mousewheel down (Scroll)
Keypad / – Toggle Left mouse button
Keypad * – Toggle Right mouse button
Keypad – - Toggle Middle mouse button

Ctrl + Keypad 0 – Enable/Disable Mouse emulator.