How to get rid of mouse cursor when no mouse installed?

I'm writing a demo program for a win98 system.
The system has no keyboard or mouse. It boots to the
application and just runs.
Problem is that if I remove the mouse, I get the dialog
box that complains that a mouse was not found. If I click
"don't show this again"...some trick with no mouse or keyboard,
the message does not appear again, but there's a mouse cursor
smack in the middle of the screen.

I want to be able to attach a mouse for diagnostic work, but
need the mouse cursor GONE when there's no mouse. Hidingit won't
work, because there's an on-screen popup keyboard that sees the
mouse location on top of it and won't go away.

Is there some magic incantation to do this?
--
Return address is VALID!

Jeff
Tue Mar 04 01:29:09 PST 2008

Change the mouse cursor to a transparent block.
-
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"mike" <spamme9@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:U14zj.7668$1_.4795@trnddc02...
> I'm writing a demo program for a win98 system.
> The system has no keyboard or mouse. It boots to the
> application and just runs.
> Problem is that if I remove the mouse, I get the dialog
> box that complains that a mouse was not found. If I click
> "don't show this again"...some trick with no mouse or keyboard,
> the message does not appear again, but there's a mouse cursor
> smack in the middle of the screen.
>
> I want to be able to attach a mouse for diagnostic work, but
> need the mouse cursor GONE when there's no mouse. Hidingit won't
> work, because there's an on-screen popup keyboard that sees the
> mouse location on top of it and won't go away.
>
> Is there some magic incantation to do this?
> --
> Return address is VALID!

mike
Tue Mar 04 18:21:33 PST 2008

Jeff Richards wrote:
> Change the mouse cursor to a transparent block.

OK, two questions.

How do I reboot with the mouse installed and expect to
use the mouse normally? It's a serial mouse, cause I need
the keyboard port open for when I need to use both.

There's an on-screen keyboard that pops up then disappears
1.5 seconds after the mouse leaves the window. So, the keyboard
pops up, sees the invisible mouse cursor and won't close its
window. So, most of the screen is covered by the keyboard
which is held up by the mouse which shouldn't be there in the first place.

How would I write a script/program to check to see if the serial mouse
is actually there and cause the mouse cursor to remove itself from
the system, not just hide its visual artifacts?
When the system boots, it knows to give me a dialog box that there's
no mouse, so this should be doable?

mike
> -
> Jeff Richards
> MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
> "mike" <spamme9@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:U14zj.7668$1_.4795@trnddc02...
>> I'm writing a demo program for a win98 system.
>> The system has no keyboard or mouse. It boots to the
>> application and just runs.
>> Problem is that if I remove the mouse, I get the dialog
>> box that complains that a mouse was not found. If I click
>> "don't show this again"...some trick with no mouse or keyboard,
>> the message does not appear again, but there's a mouse cursor
>> smack in the middle of the screen.
>>
>> I want to be able to attach a mouse for diagnostic work, but
>> need the mouse cursor GONE when there's no mouse. Hidingit won't
>> work, because there's an on-screen popup keyboard that sees the
>> mouse location on top of it and won't go away.
>>
>> Is there some magic incantation to do this?
>> --
>> Return address is VALID!
>
>


--
Return address is VALID!

Jeff
Wed Mar 05 01:34:50 PST 2008

"mike" <spamme9@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Nsnzj.14387$ES.12330@trnddc05...
> Jeff Richards wrote:
>> Change the mouse cursor to a transparent block.
>
> OK, two questions.
>
> How do I reboot with the mouse installed and expect to
> use the mouse normally?

Write a script to change the mouse cursor back to standard, create a hortcut
to the script, and assign it a shorcut key.

> It's a serial mouse, cause I need
> the keyboard port open for when I need to use both.

Uh! Both what? The form of mouse connection is probably irrelevent to your
problem. Windows makes all mouses look the same.

> There's an on-screen keyboard that pops up then disappears
> 1.5 seconds after the mouse leaves the window. So, the keyboard
> pops up, sees the invisible mouse cursor and won't close its
> window. So, most of the screen is covered by the keyboard
> which is held up by the mouse which shouldn't be there in the first place.
>

Why are you starting the keyboard applcation? Stop it from starting and you
don't have to worry about closing it.

> How would I write a script/program to check to see if the serial mouse
> is actually there and cause the mouse cursor to remove itself from
> the system, not just hide its visual artifacts?

I don't think you can. That's why I suggested leaving the cursor there and
just making it invisible. Writing a DOS program to run before boot to
install a mouse driver and report the result (success or not) is trivial,
but I don't think it will help your problem with Windows complaining about
the lack of a mouse if it isn't there,

> When the system boots, it knows to give me a dialog box that there's
> no mouse, so this should be doable?

It should be (as in ought to be) but I don't think it is.

> mike

-
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

Franc
Wed Mar 05 11:15:10 PST 2008

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:15:48 GMT, mike <spamme9@gmail.com> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

>I'm writing a demo program for a win98 system.
>The system has no keyboard or mouse. It boots to the
>application and just runs.
>Problem is that if I remove the mouse, I get the dialog
>box that complains that a mouse was not found. If I click
>"don't show this again"...some trick with no mouse or keyboard,
>the message does not appear again, but there's a mouse cursor
>smack in the middle of the screen.

Does the mouse cursor persist because there is still a mouse entry in
Device Manager? Will removing this entry make the cursor go away?

>I want to be able to attach a mouse for diagnostic work, but
>need the mouse cursor GONE when there's no mouse. Hidingit won't
>work, because there's an on-screen popup keyboard that sees the
>mouse location on top of it and won't go away.
>
>Is there some magic incantation to do this?

Is it possible to create two hardware profiles, one with a mouse and
one without, and then select the desired profile at bootup? Will the
mouse cursor be absent from the latter profile?

"How to Create Hardware Profiles for Windows 95, Windows 98, and
Windows NT 4"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236963

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

mike
Thu Mar 06 14:42:27 PST 2008

Franc Zabkar wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:15:48 GMT, mike <spamme9@gmail.com> put finger
> to keyboard and composed:
>
>> I'm writing a demo program for a win98 system.
>> The system has no keyboard or mouse. It boots to the
>> application and just runs.
>> Problem is that if I remove the mouse, I get the dialog
>> box that complains that a mouse was not found. If I click
>> "don't show this again"...some trick with no mouse or keyboard,
>> the message does not appear again, but there's a mouse cursor
>> smack in the middle of the screen.
>
> Does the mouse cursor persist because there is still a mouse entry in
> Device Manager? Will removing this entry make the cursor go away?
>
>> I want to be able to attach a mouse for diagnostic work, but
>> need the mouse cursor GONE when there's no mouse. Hidingit won't
>> work, because there's an on-screen popup keyboard that sees the
>> mouse location on top of it and won't go away.
>>
>> Is there some magic incantation to do this?
>
> Is it possible to create two hardware profiles, one with a mouse and
> one without, and then select the desired profile at bootup? Will the
> mouse cursor be absent from the latter profile?

I expect it is, but once the mouse cursor is gone, there'll be
no way to get it back, cause the mouse won't work and the keyboard is
not connected.

I think this has been beat to death. Let's let it die.
mike

>
> "How to Create Hardware Profiles for Windows 95, Windows 98, and
> Windows NT 4"
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236963
>
> - Franc Zabkar


--
Return address is VALID!