Who uses a serial mouse?

So you've got your GPS plugged into your serial port and you boot your computer. Only when it comes up you find that your mouse is bouncing all over the screen and randomly clicking shit. Well, this is because Windows thinks your GPS is a serial mouse. Here's how to fix this on Windows XP by telling the OS not to load a serial mouse:

1. Click Start -> Run
2. Type regedit
3. Browse to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\sermouse]
4. Change the value "Start"=dword:00000003 to "Start"=dword:00000004 by double clicking the "Start" value and changing the 3 in the box to a 4.
5. You're done!

Props to ret of the mp3car.com forums for showing me this tip. Note that some Windows updates will revert this setting and force you to perform the fix over again. If your GPS is permanently wired into your internal serial port like mine was, you can just disable the serial port in the BIOS until you have a chance to apply the fix.