[bortony]

can anyone tell me if there is some sort of preference file for my mouse? i suspect some sort of file corruption, since i've suddenly lost the ability to drag items from place to place and folder to folder on my desktop. i can drag as normal in other applications, but OS X won't let me do it. it's making my efforts to re-organize files VERY frustrating, as i have to resort to manually opening each folder, copying files from the old one, and then pasting them into the new one. then i have to delete the old one from the first folder.
can you help me?
if it makes a difference, i'm using OS X 10.2.8 on a Quicksilver PowerMac G4 dual 1GHz
thanks in advance
tony

[Nobody]

Drag this preference file to the desktop...com.apple.windowserver.plist.
It is found here:
/Library/Preferences/ com.apple.windowserver.plist
Reboot and see if it works
If it works, then you can trash the one on your desktop.

[bortony]

it's not working. it's kind of funny that you suggested i drag the file to the desktop, since that's exactly what i can't do right now. so i copied it to the desktop, threw the old one in the trash, and--no luck.
the only thing that seemed to change is that my display arrangements in system preferences were reset to a default setting. i have two monitors, so it's obvious when that happens. is there another possibility?
tony

[dcpics]

There is a desktop pref, in the same folder. You can try trashing that to see if things clear up.
com.apple.desktop.plist
But first, try running your disk utility
Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility
First try repairing permissions.
If permissions repair or desktop pref don't work, start up from the install disk, select Disk Utility and try repair disk.

[dougster]

Instead of draging the pref try: Control + click on that pref, and use the contextual drop down menu to select 'Move to trash'.

[bortony]

that's the problem--i have no choice BUT to use the contextual menu. i cannot drag items.
i trashed the 'desktop' file from my preferences and now my desktop picture has been reset to default, and system preferences will not let me change it to the blue squares i had previously selected. repairing permissions has had no effect.
i think my efforts this far are affecting the desktop display, but not the mouse's functionality in OS X. so are there any other files that are specifically related to the mouse ?
the stupid thing is i'm just trying to back up files before i do a fresh install of Panther and get rid of Jaguar altogether. but it's such a pain to use the contextual menu instead of dragging--especially since i can't seem to cut and paste. i have to copy, paste and then delete.
any other ideas?
tony

[sereluna]

If it's not an Apple mouse, do a search for the brand name.
If you just want to back up, download an application to do it for you, and sort out what you do and don't want after regaining mouse input.
You could try downloading a new driver.
Otherwise borrow someone else's mouse. It seems it's the OS that has the problem, but it might only be that mouse it has a problem with .

[bortony]

it's an apple mouse, and i already tried a different one--same problem.
and they both work fine in other apps.--just not when i'm moving files around the desktop. oh yeah, and i can reposition/resize windows around, but i can't drag an item from one window to another or to/from the desktop.
what back-up application would you recommend i download?
tony

[dcpics]

It does seem like as OS problem over the mouse, and the fact it works well in other programs seems to indicate just the desktop or finder is corrupted. Verified by the fact you can't change the desktop pattern.
You may want to tray running DiskWarrior or Nortons or the Mac Disk Repair utility to see if there is a catalog problem one of them can find.
As for backups, a lot of folks like Carbon Copy Cloner

[jakor]

Please god tell me if you figure out how to fix this, i have the same problem and it is driving me crazy. I was going to do a complete system restore to fix it, except its such a hassle to move things when you can't drag them so backing up is too much of pain.... Just curious, you wouldn't happen to be using shapeshifter or application enhancer would you? when i was trying to figure out what was wrong i went over my crash logs and these two seemed to be causeing it... which did me no good as even after uninstalling them, the problem was not fixed. If anyone know how to fix this all input would be wonderful.