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This is not a Windows problem. It's me, I occasionally lose sight of my cursor on my Windows 8.1 systems. Windows is not hiding it or anything, it's just that on my high res monitors, the cursor is too small and being white on a mostly white background, well I occasionally can't see it and have to keep moving it until my eyes see it again.

I would really like to enlarge and/or colorize my cursor so that I can see it when I move it. Or maybe have a hotkey combination that could change the color of the cursor momentarily, backlight it for 5 seconds, or automatically center it on my center monitor.

This happens on two Windows 8.1 systems and a Windows 7 system. The higher-resolution the monitor, the worse the problem for me.

Any ideas?

Have you tried some of the accessibility options? Go to the charms bar, select Settings-Personalization-Mouse Properties and try some of the double-size pointer sets. I've also seen folks use mouse trails to make the pointer more visible.

Try Windows black or inverted, and large or extra large?
Edit: Mouse Properties in the control panel, and Pointers Tab
You could use your own pointers if you hit browse button at the bottom.

Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options
Check "Show location of my pointer when I press the Ctrl key."

jihadjoe wrote:

Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options
Check "Show location of my pointer when I press the Ctrl key."

+1

Here's another vote for enlarging the cursor rather than giving it a trail. The locator option is nice, but may not be necessary that way.

What about the text cursor? I sometimes find it hard to locate too, even on standard dpi screen. There's an accesibility option in Windows to make it wider than one pixel. Firefox ignores this but has its own setting for cursor width.

Don't forget to "enable pointer shadow" from the mouse properties panel, under the Pointers tab. I have no idea why Microsoft started disabling it by default, but mouse shadow helps me track the thing on bright backdrops much more easily.

As others mentioned cursor trails would help even more. You can change the mouse "scheme" as well to make it black or modify how it looks. There are guides for downloading and installing your own mouse "schemes" if you wish to change it's appearance and color too.

Kougar wrote:

Don't forget to "enable pointer shadow" from the mouse properties panel, under the Pointers tab. I have no idea why Microsoft started disabling it by default.

Some idiot thought that they should dumb down the aero interface to make it look like a phone OS.

Thanks for the excellent tip, though. It does make the pointer more visible.

Do check out the options under Control Panel - Appearance and Personalization - Ease of Access Center - Make the mouse easier to use.

Thanks everybody. I changed the scheme to "enlarged system" and enabled shadow and find via ctrl. Much better!

My problem in office is my 3rd monitor that is in portrait, and the cursor is at the "height" that it cannot slide freely to the other monitors, then I will lose track of the cursor.

Me too!

At home, I have 5 monitors. Far left and far right are lower res so sometimes the cursor hangs up when going from one of the three in front to one of the side monitors.

Similar at work where we are all scavengers who have different-res monitors on our desks!

So I usually line the tops of the monitors up on my desk as best I can, then in the resolution applet, I do the same with the little monitor icons; position them so their top edges are even. When going from one monitor to another, the cursor won't hang up if I first slide it up to mid-screen or higher before I go to left or right. Took me a little while to train my hand and eyes for this but it works pretty well now.

Update:

Well, I only had to make the configuration change on one Windows 8.1 system. I changed the desktop and some time later, I had to use the laptop which I keep in front of the television in another room. Well, I noticed almost immediately that the change had been replicated on the laptop. I use the Microsoft common login doohickey, so I guess the cloud mothership just made it happen. Kind of nice, even though it was unnerving until it dawned on me what had happened.

I found for my old parents that there were two issues:

1) The "hide cursor while typing" option was enabled.
2) larger cursors and pointer trails worked a treat. I use pointer trails here at work on these slow-response PVA screens (minimum trail length, but just enough to make tracking it in motion easier).

When I switched to a 1440p monitor, I had to start enlarging the mouse pointer as well. Sucks getting old. The press Ctrl to show the position thing is really nice, never noticed it before. Learned something new.