Thanks for your reply. I too think that it's probably driver-related (I can't be sure until I check the tester's driver settings myself ) however the tester says that the third button works in some other apps (word etc.) and also the fact that mickey.z gives proper values suggests imho that the installed driver is meant to be used with a three-button mouse.
I guess I'll better get the same kind of mouse and test it myself.
thanks.