One thing they don't tell you about getting older is just how often you lose your curser on your screen and can't find it for like ten seconds even when you frantically wiggle your mouse back and forth.
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I have been using mice since mice were available to use and, other than that brief window of time when laptops had LCD screens, this has only been a problem recently.
SAME. wtf is that about!? Windows had (has?) a "find pointer" feature and I used to scoff at it, but now I'm wondering if it still exists. I have three monitors for my desktop, but it's also an issue on the laptop, so its me.
You might want to install PowerToys from Microsoft. It's a free suite of tools and has one that shows you where the mouse pointer is if you double-press CTRL :)
Windows has a "locate cursor" option in Mouse Settings. So when you hit the Control key, a little radar ping with circle the cursor. Works well and fun to play with while waiting for things to load.
I’ve recently noticed that when that happens to me my battery is low and the screen brightness has automatically decreased. Try increasing the brightness and plug in the charger. So far it’s worked for me every time.
I turned mine bright orange and doubled the size. I forget what it's called but windows has an accessibility option where double pressing control will highlight the cursor on the screen.
Every day at least once I have to switch to my backup mouse because I'm convinced the battery died. The changeover kills my arthritis which leads to an inability to do housework 🤷♀️ Getting older is weird sometimes
I think Apple fixed this by making the curser get bigger and bigger the more you shake it. Then again I haven’t had a PC in a while and wouldn’t be surprised if they do this too just wanted to throw that out there 😆
I've literally always had this problem. The moment I learned years ago while looking around in various Windows settings that there was an option to press the Control key to locate the mouse by making rings appear and zoom in on it, I activated said setting and never looked back.
Yes! Thankfully powertoys exists. It is a set of extensions for powerusers maintained by Microsoft. One of them is a nice effect that helps to find the cursor once you shake it, much like on MacOS. Try it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Look, I’ve made my mouse comically large and bright colours on both my work and personal computers for a reason 🫠
I sometimes get the looks and people think I’m being quirky but I just cannot find it if not, with bigger screen resolutions the mouse has become tiny.
My nightmare is moving the mouse but nothing actually happening because my pc has crashed and frozen on its last display
God damn you, Kernel Power Error (Event ID 41)
I hate when this happens when you are trying to end a video conference, and meanwhile everyone is saying goodbye in as many ways and languages they can think of.
I recently switched from Windows to MacOS and was really happy to discover the feature where if you do the mouse wiggle thing your curser gets much bigger lol
I hear you, Jim. And multiple monitors make it even harder. Sometimes I completely lose the mouse pointer, and find that trying to get any more work done for the rest of the day just seems, well, pointless.
That's not getting older that's having silly people writing the software and deciding to have the cursor and scroll bars vanish if you stop moving the mouse for two seconds
I'm still okay on my primary screen, but when I'm working with a second screen it becomes an issue (presumably because the other screen is farther away)
I had this problem! I use Microsoft OS and found an option to both scale up the cursor and have it adopt the negative color of whatever it hovers over. Never lose it now!
Windows does have a "Locate Cursor" radar ping. It's hidden inside of Mouse Settings > Additional Mouse Options > Pointer > "show location when Control is pressed"
I had the same problem. On MacOS go to accessibility settings and change cursor color. I use red but you can experiment and see what works best for you.
In the accessibility options you can set the left ctrl button to make like an expanding circle animation around the cursor. So you can spam left ctrl quickly and see where the circle is.
This plus my wireless mouse is missing the battery cover and the duck tape replacement lets them come loose. This usually happens if I bang the mouse in frustration at not being able to find the double size pointer.
ideas for Windows 11 at least:
- mouse trails
- do not use the setting where the mouse jumps to a new active window
- use the control key to locate mouse
- Object Desktop has a lot of good cursor options among other features
Having only ONE cursor is so 1990. Still waiting for Apple to introduce 2 (two) cursors. I wrote a small script, the cursor is using the webcam and follows my gaze but now it's stuck in the top right corner where the clock is
I swear they’ve nerfed this on Mac recently. It used to make the cursor enormous the longer you wiggled it (that sounded gross), but nowadays it only makes it slightly larger.
Have been pressing CTRL to find my cursor for more years than I will admit.
Always fun when someone noticed during a screenshare and ask what the bubble things were
Another solution is to download PowerToys. Within PowerToys is additional Mouse Utilities. You can then set it so when you wiggle your mouse it will dim the rest of your screen and leave a bright circle around your cursor. Click and the screen returns to normal. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
One of the "Windows powertoys" is a little utility that causes the screen to dim except for a little brightened circle around the cursor whenever you double-tap the left control button:)
I refuse to admit this age related falafel , however I have noticed an increase in lost cursor as the years have progressed. It must be a bad mouse… I’m mostly sure of it.
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There's an option on the mouse settings, which shows where the mouse cursor is when you press the CTRL key, by drawing rings around it
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/make-the-pointer-easier-to-see-mchlp2920/mac
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/mouse-utilities
Bc it makes you say Where the Fk did that go?
What I hate is having a phantom cursor in the Google docs document and then seeing that I’m writing in the document title line when I type
Cool.
I sometimes get the looks and people think I’m being quirky but I just cannot find it if not, with bigger screen resolutions the mouse has become tiny.
Watch it jiggle
Lol
God damn you, Kernel Power Error (Event ID 41)
I just make my pointer large and shocking pink (I'm sure there"s a crude joke in there - pls restrain yourselves).
Amuses ppl when I'm sharing my screen in an online meeting.
And of course, the alternative ye might benefit from a more High-visibility mouse, i am certain there are settings to assist in this matter, Sir.
A 16 pixel high cursor on a 640x480 display was pretty easy to find. Now days Windows has a 19 pixel tall cursor, and a 4k screen is 2160px high.
Half my day is wiggling that damn mouse looking for it.
Now we have multiple widescreen monitors at crazy resolution that span beyond our field of view.
I had to increase the size of my cursor. Changing it to a high contrast color also helped.
I used to make fun of my parents for this shit.
Or perhaps this requires the free #PowerToys - afk rn, so I can't verify.
Us old people got to stick together, we can do this :)
(Thanks for the tip)
Still not sure how to feel about it.
Now I can't read tooltips. :(
Really helps on large screens.
😁
(sadly for some reason it looks very blurry when connecting via RDP)
Don't remember that on XP.
- mouse trails
- do not use the setting where the mouse jumps to a new active window
- use the control key to locate mouse
- Object Desktop has a lot of good cursor options among other features
Windows has a neat option to "show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key", that's dang handy.
And every time I lose my mouse, I wiggle first, wiggle again and then start a Where's wally squint.
I never actually use the ctrl key and I've been doing this a long time.
I might be in... The Twilight Zone
On Mac and [certain flavors of] Linux, rapidly wiggling the mouse makes the cursor temporarily expand to comically large size.
It sure does get big too. That looks like a handy feature
https://youtu.be/U5n-JE7r_8g?si=qQwKFPn10I7JrOCB&t=44
Always fun when someone noticed during a screenshare and ask what the bubble things were
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/