Getting IntelliType for Microsoft keyboards and/or mice to load at startup in Mountain Lion

Question

To date, Microsoft hasn't fixed the issue with the IntelliType drivers in Mountain Lion so they load by themselves. You have to open the System Preferences and click on the Microsoft Keyboard or Mouse panes to get them to load. The following will eliminate the need to perform these manual steps.
I'd like to give credit to the person who first discovered this, but having found the same text in numerous places, I can't single out the origin.
Navigate to the folder /Library/PreferencePanes/ of the startup drive
Right click on Microsoft Mouse.prefpane for mice, Microsoft Keyboard.prefPane for keyboards
From the resulting contextual menu, select Show Package Contents
Navigate down to Contents > Resources
Leave the Resources folder open on the desktop and open the System Preferences
Select Users & Groups
Click on your user account and then the Login Items tab
Go back to the Resources folder on the desktop, select the file MicrosoftMouseHelper or MicrosoftKeyboardHelper, then drag and drop it into the Login Items window on the right hand side of the Login Items page (in the System Preferences window).
In the sample below, I added the keyboard helper.
Repeat the steps if you added the keyboard helper and also need the mouse helper.
Now when you restart or start up your Mac, these helpers will load automatically.
For users wondering if this is some sort of hack, it is not. If you've used IntelliType in Lion, Snow Leopard, or other previous versions of OS X, you'll see that MicrosoftMouseHelper and/or MicrosoftKeyboardHelper are in the user account Login Items. What's probably happening is security changes in Mountain Lion, such as sandboxing, are preventing these Login Items from being added during installation. So all you're doing is manually completing a step the IntelliType installer is failing at.

Answer 1

how you found this solution is beyond me as i did google a few days ago and found nothing.
I've looked numerous times, also. Must have gotten the right keywords this time.
What symptoms will a poster have if this is the problem?
I can't speak for users of the mouse panel, but if you're using one of the Microsoft keyboards the drivers are for, your keyboard won't be completely functional. Among the problems:
1) The keyboard will remain mapped for a PC. The Alt (Option) key is next to the spacebar and will stay there, which means the Windows logo key will respond as the Command key, which is between Alt and Ctrl. To the right of the spacebar, the Alt key will again be Option, but the menu key between that and the right Ctrl key won't do anything you expect. To say the least, not having the Command key in its normal Mac position is a real pain.
2) None of the other special keys will work, like the entire string of silver keys across the top of the 4000.
gave you credit and pointed back to this for ya. great guy.
Thanks! I hadn't seen that site before. Looks like a person could spend days there. I'll have to bookmark that one.
A secondary note: For users wondering if this is some sort of hack, it is not. If you've used IntelliType in Lion, Snow Leopard, or other previous versions of OS X, you'll see that MicrosoftMouseHelper and/or MicrosoftKeyboardHelper are in the user account Login Items. What's probably happening is security changes in Mountain Lion, such as sandboxing, are preventing these Login Items from being added during installation. So all you're doing is manually completing a step the IntelliType installer is failing at.