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Turning mouse vanish on

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:13 am
by PB
According to MSDN, I should be able to turn mouse vanish on for Windows XP
with the following code. (Mouse vanish = the mouse hides when typing, and
reappears when the mouse is moved).

Code: Select all

Debug SystemParametersInfo_(#SPI_SETMOUSEVANISH,0,#True,0)
If I run this, it returns 1, which means it worked... but it doesn't. If I type, the
mouse is still present instead of disappearing. Any ideas why? MSDN says it's
only Windows 2000/NT and Windows 98/95 that doesn't support this command,
and I'm running XP Pro with SP2. At the moment I've been using my own code
to hide the mouse while typing, but man, I'd love to use just one line like this!

MSDN online article about it (not the article I used):
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724947.aspx

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:02 pm
by tinman
That only describes setting the mouse vanish setting system-wide. It doesn't necessarily perform the mouse hiding, which I would have thought would be up to the application to check the setting and hide the mouse itself.

I just tried setting the option using the control panel -> Mouse here and the only application I have found so far that obeys the mouse hiding is notepad. So it must be up to the application or control to perform.

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:07 pm
by PB
I see... well, that sucks then. :)

BTW, Notepad here hides the mouse even if this is set to 0, so go figure. :)

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:01 pm
by Trond
PB wrote:I see... well, that sucks then. :)

BTW, Notepad here hides the mouse even if this is set to 0, so go figure. :)
Yes, I noticed this before as well. The whole setting seems to be royally broken - when I want it off I can't make it go off, when I want it on I can't make it go on!

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:34 am
by PB
> The whole setting seems to be royally broken

Yep, that's what I thought. I'm glad I'm not the only one! I always thought it was
just my PC and/or mouse that I was using (Logitech). Good to know others have
problems with it, too.