You may have noticed that your cursor looks different when you perform different tasks in Windows 7. When Windows is busy working on something it displays one image, and when you are selecting text it appears with another image:
You can actually change the way your cursor looks for each individual task that Windows performs, and you can also choose a preset combination of mouse pointer styles.
To make these changes, click Start > Control Panel.
The default view for the control panel looks like the image below, which doesn’t help us much:
Click to enlarge
To get a better view of the control panel, click the View by: selector in the top right of the panel, and select Large icons. Find the Mouse icon and click on it.
When the Mouse Properties window opens, click on the Pointers tab.
Windows 7 provides a number of preset Schemes for mouse pointer styles that you can choose from. They consist of different combinations of images that display for the cursor when you perform different tasks. Alternatively, you can choose your own image for each task in the Customize section of the window. Simply click on a particular task, for example, Busy, and click Browse. The browse window opens in the Cursors folder by default, where you can select from all the mouse pointer styles that ship with Windows 7.
If you’ve downloaded and saved new custom mouse pointer styles, you can use those too. Mouse pointer files have the .ani or .cur file extension. Before you use a custom mouse pointer, you will have to unblock it by right clicking on the file, then select Properties > General tab > Unblock. You will only see the Unblock button if you downloaded the mouse pointer. Pointer styles that came with Windows 7 are already unblocked, so if you don’t see the button, you don’t need to worry.
Once unblocked, select the file and click open. That style will then be used for the cursor whenever Windows is performing that particular task in the future.
If you change your mind and want to revert back to the original mouse pointer style, just make sure the correct task is selected and then click Use Default. When you are happy with your changes, click OK.
If you’ve made lots of changes to your mouse pointers, you can save this combination as a new scheme by clicking Save As and then naming the scheme.