Can you completely hide the mouse cursor?

[CapriRS302]

I have followed most of the guidelines on the wiki and a few other sources to make my machine have an invisible cursor, but regardless I always seem to see the default cursor flash on the screen for a split second right as windows starts up.

Is there any way to modify that cursor file so that it isn't seen at all?

[tel0004]

I wonder if it would be easier to instead to change the cursor to a 1x1 dot (a similar color as the background, which would be unnoticeable.  I question if that would work though, because if the cursor is popping up before windows is fully loaded, then any windows settings have not been loaded yet.

[CapriRS302]

Actually I have my cursor set to be 1 dark grey pixel, so that you can barely see it when it moves, but for a split second windows loads its default cursor before it switches.

Also, before I started monkeying around with the registry to hide the cursor, the cursor would disappear when Maximus Arcade loaded up, now when MA loads up I see the cursor on the screen until I try to move it, then it vanishes.  Any ideas?

[Blanka]

Set up a 2-screen desktop. Let it boot into the invisible one. Or edit the original mouse-cursor image.

[Corbo]

Try this:

http://minicade.blogspot.com/2011/05/hiding-xp.html

Great little tool for hiding the mouse.  It also launches your front end of choice instead of Explorer amongst other things.

[muggsy]

I can't recall which package I picked it up from.. but I think it might have been in MameWAH. It was transparent.cur and I used that to replace 3 mouse cursor options... and that hid it for me pretty good

[bkenobi]

InstantSheller is AWESOME!  It will not work on Vista or Win7 AFAIK, but it does work great on WinXP.

[Corbo]

Instant sheller is the one on my link, totally agree with you.  I can boot the arcade and shut it down again without a whiff of XP, mouse cursors or anything to take away from the arcade experience.  Brilliant program.

[Bender]

even with instant sheller the cursor pops up for a slit second on boot up
toward the end of this thread is the only way I've found to completely remove the cursor

[CapriRS302]

Thanks!

[Guywiththegun]

I used that Instant Sheller program for a while and never had a mouse cursor pop up. Its been a while but I believe it lets you turn the cursor into a single black pixel.

[Gray_Area]

I've been using Instant Sheller on one machine, and yes the stock cursor pops up very quickly. Recently, I tried Quick Sheller. It seems better at this, and has more options.

I'm going to back-track on this. Playing around with it more has revealed some issues.

[bkenobi]

The cursor will show up if you use a standard type cursor and a different colored background.  However, if you want the cursor to be invisible, there is a special cursor you can choose that's a single black pixel.  If you use that and use a dark background, you'll never see it.  If you use that cursor, you won't even notice unless you move the mouse and look REALLY close.

[ark_ader]

Unplug the mouse.