Can an SE4 game be saved without a mouse?

[PvK]

My LINKSYS brand switchbox suddenly decided to lock up, requiring it to be reset, and then all my computers connecting to it running Microsoft Windows cannot see the mouse signal until I reboot them using the keyboard.

Sadly, I have an SE4 game running on one of them, and I haven't saved my orders in a while.

So, is there any way to use the keyboard and not the mouse to get to the Save Game function in SE4? Or do I need to shut it down without saving?

(BTW, I hate that this problem exists - a mouse should be able to be yanked in and out and still be usable - my 1987 Atari computers have no problem with this...)

PvK

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

My advice: Reboot and keep a Plug-and-Play mouse handy as a backup, for when your regular mouse decides to crap out on you again like this. I know of no way to save SEIV games without a mouse, and I don't think it's possible, but I just recommend a backup PnP mouse. It should work.

[Suicide Junkie]

There is F12 - Y, if it happens to be a simultaneous turn game.
But of course, you don't get to finish your orders in that case.

[parabolize]

I thought win2k and up could do that even in the ps/2 port (though ps/2 ports arn't made for hotplugging). What OS is it? Anyway, I don't think you can save without a mouse. You can get to the menu with F2 but thats it.

[Suicide Junkie]

What about the "accessibility" settings in your control panel?
You might be able to turn them on and control a fake mouse with the numpad.

[douglas]

The shortcut for that feature, at least with Win2k, is left alt+left shift+numlock. If you have that shortcut turned off or it's different for your system, you should be able to navigate to control panel and open accessibility options with the windows key, arrow keys, and enter, then to the mouse tab with tab and arrow keys, to the checkbox with tab, and check it with +.

Once you have it on, the numpad keys 1-4 and 6-9 move the pointer in the appropriate direction and 5 does a left-click. I'm not sure what gets you a right-click, but you don't need that to save SE4.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hey, that's handy.

[Kamog]

A couple of years ago, when my mouse broke I played a game of SEIV using the accessibility keypad function. I used the keypad for about a week but it got quite tedious and I never got used to it. Actually SEIV wasn't that bad because you can take your time to move the cursor around. Some other games were very difficult to play with the keypad because you have to click on things that move around.

[PvK]

Wow, that's a great and varied list of working solutions! Thanks, everyone!

I gathered a USB mouse (a Microsoft one, so PnP didn't have any trouble recognizing it) and plugged it in, and XP allowed it to take over the pointer - an hour of SE4 orders and other stuff saved!

But the other suggestions would also have worked, except apparently the PS/2 one, in my case anyway.

(BTW, to answer parabolize's question, it is running XP, but it failed to recognize the re-plugged PS/2 mouse.)

PvK

[Fyron]

You don't really need a Microsoft mouse to guarantee that UPnP has no problems with it. All you need to avoid is $2 no name brand mice.