The other day, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) was installed on my Dell XPS 420 desktop PC via Windows Update.

Ever since, I’ve experienced a number of weird things. No matter which way I look at them, I can’t see any other reason other than SP2 somehow has Done (or Undone) Something.

What else would you think when things like this have been happening only since the service pack was installed:

• Using the scroll wheel on my wired Dell laser mouse to click on things, not only to scroll pages, suddenly stopped working. It was clicking away just fine before SP2. The mouse applet in control panel doesn’t include any way to set the scroll wheel to click. I can’t recall whether it did before. But before SP2, I could click with the scroll wheel!
• Now there are two identical entries for ‘HID-compliant mouse’ in Device Manager. Before SP2 there was only one entry.
• The little network icon in the system tray intermittently now shows no network, even when there is one (which is always the case with this wired PC). It didn’t do that, ever, before SP2.
• Device Manager shows three entries for ‘Bluetooth Peripheral Device,’  each with “The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28)” explanation. No details at all as to what these devices are; having the system try to install drivers doesn’t work. Those entries weren’t there before SP2.

About the only thing so far that surely must be coincidental and nothing to do with SP2 is the authorization error dialog I just got when connecting my iPhone to iTunes.

I’ve never had that error before, though!

I guess the most frustrating thing is not having a clear idea on how on earth to successfully troubleshoot all these things.

Any suggestions, anyone?