Let’s face it. There are times in every IT person’s week
when the urgent need for high-powered technical intelligence wanes a
bit—especially on a slow Friday afternoon. Those are the times when technical
prowess turns to such tasks as fine tuning the advanced settings of the
ultimate OpenGL 3D screen saver or other system tweaks. The next time you find
yourself in this situation, why not investigate some
of Windows XP’s built-in animated pointer schemes?

Here’s how:

  1. Go to Start | Control Panel and double-click the Mouse tool to access the Mouse
    Properties dialog box.
  2. Select
    the Pointers tab.
  3. In the Scheme drop-down list, select a scheme from the list. (Keep in mind that not all of the pointer schemes in the list are animated, and some of the pointer schemes are designed for Windows Accessibility features.)
  4. Once you select a pointer scheme, you can view the various
    animated pointers in that scheme by scrolling through the Customize list and
    selecting the pointer. When you do, you’ll see the animation in a frame
    adjacent to the Scheme drop-down list.
  5. Click OK.

If you wish, you can create your own animated scheme by
double-clicking a pointer in the Customize list, selecting from one of the
available pointers, and then clicking the Save As button in the Scheme panel
and providing a unique name.

Note: This tip applies
to both Windows XP Professional and Home.

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