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I work in a public computer lab where we just got a bunch of new computers, but they all came with these nice wireless mice. We'd like to reduce the chance of theft, so I thought that it might be helpful if some sort of alarm were to go off when the mouse went out of range. This, of course, may end up being a bad idea with false alarms and so forth but we're willing to try it out and see.

Does anyone know how I might go about having some sort of alarm triggered when a device like a mouse goes out of range? The machines are Windows 7 and the mice are Dell KM632.

Mike
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  • Whoever steals the mouse will grab the receiver also (unless your problem is adolescent vandalism), so the "out of range" approach is optimistic, at best. Watching the USB receiver is a better idea, I think. I have no idea what [this](http://www.dhgate.com/notebook-laptop-security-lock-usb-disconnect/p-ff8080813237224e01323a05d46c1d0a.html) is, but it looks like something you could use. – Ярослав Рахматуллин Dec 07 '12 at 04:42

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I don't know if such a thing exists, but you could certainly write a service that runs on each desktop. The service watches WMI for changes to any thievable device. Should one be disconnected, the time, computer name and device ID are e-mailed to the lab administrator. This information can be correlated with logs to find the culprit.

However, there's a problem of people stealing from computers they aren't using, or stealing from computers that are turned off. Maybe you're better off investing in department store style anti-theft devices, or investing in simple corded mice.

Hand-E-Food
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  • I went through the public school system (US) - having such a system you describe would be unheard of and you would be shooed out of the building for having such blasphemous ideas. I think the department store style is the OPs best bet. – Natalie Adams Dec 07 '12 at 05:44