Microsoft Continues Mouse and Keyboard Support for Windows in 2025

The year is 2025. Computing has long since passed the desktop age, the laptop age, the mobile age, and is in the implanted chip stage, when every user now can choose a computing chipset that is implanted into their body. These chips interact with sensors found at any location (work or play) that a user walks into. These chipsets allow users to do work, shop, search, or be entertained free from the hardware once associated with these activities. Content is displayed on what used to be called contact lenses or on immersive large screens that are capable of displaying content specific to one user, while simultaneously displaying content specific to other users.

Operating systems as we know them don’t exist. All of that is handled by what used to be called the Cloud, but is now simply called the Network. That throwback term was re-coined once security and privacy in the Cloud broke down completely and rained on everyone’s parade. Companies like Google, which bought Apple in late 2021 and Amazon rule most of the computing world now that Facebook has folded its tent in the wake of scandals brought about by the use of virtual social networking that created relationships with fictitious individuals created to expand user counts.

And then, there’s Microsoft. Long left for dead, Microsoft has hung on through tumultuous changes in the computing world, simply because far too many business refuse to move away from its Office and Enterprise products. In fact, 5% of the business community still uses Windows XP to power its office computers. Third party security vendors sprang up once Windows XP was officially discontinued in 2014.

Microsoft tried with each new wave of innovation to introduce products that appealed to the consumer market that kept hungering for the next great thing. But at the most recent re-Build Conference, Microsoft once again backtracked on its latest new attempts at embedded human chip technology by offering up Windows 14.1 Update 1 which added back controls for mouse and keyboard users.

Microsoft’s fourth attempt at weaning users away from desktops and keyboards failed in much the same way as preceding innovation from Redmond did. Users still hungered for the tactile feel of a mouse and a keyboard even with the new embedded chip technology. Many felt lost without a Start Button. But in the latest update those users can now have a port installed in one of three places on their body that will allow the desired peripherals to be plugged in. Or they can opt for a new Bluetooth 8.2 sensor to be implanted alongside the chip to interface with keyboards and mice equipped for that technology.

Given that keyboards and mice are not manufactured by companies other than Microsoft, it is anticipated that many keyboard and mice users will opt for the plug-in-ports so they can use older and aging peripherals that can still be found for sale at most flea markets. The embedded plug-in-ports must be installed by a doctor who is a certified Microsoft chip implanter and in some cases the cost is covered by what used to be called insurance.

Attempting to spin the retreat into a positive move, Microsoft’s new CEO claims that, “decades ago we helped create and popularize a metaphor for interacting with computers that many still see as a valid method of input and interaction. Users spoke. We listened. As we have seen technology advance from touch screens to voice control and eye-tracking, into an age where thoughts are now initiating commands faster than the human brain can comprehend, there are still those who prefer to point, click, and type. Microsoft will always listen to that segment of the market and respond to those users. They will always have a home at Microsoft. At least until the replacement of alpha-numeric symbols and graphic representations we use for communication is complete sometime within the next decade or so.” 

In other news, Microsoft announced that it hoped to unveil a touch version of Microsoft Office for Windows within the next year.