No mouse on slave if mouse not connected under Windows 10

[Gerald King]

First off, love this program.  Have 2 PC's and laptop on my work station, makes life SO much easier.  My Company is slowing pushing us to Windows 10.  I updated 1 PC and then installed Input Director, works great.  I DO have a mouse and keyboard attached.

BUT when I updated my other PC and then installed Input Director, I had no mouse.  When I plug in a mouse, cursor returns.

So in researching this issue, I found https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/input-director/cO4LH8UjxFc that has the SAME issue from 10 years ago.  It explains how to enable mouse keys which resolve the issue, BUT it did not resolve for me even though a post from 2015 says it works on Win 10.  Then I found https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!searchin/input-director/Mouse%7Csort:relevance/input-director/RggPhXPUS1U/VxBMxX3ryn4J which talks about the same issue under Windows 8.1

SO 10 years of this issue and no resolution?  I have mouse keys enabled and with the mouse plugged in I can move the cursor with the arrow keys, BUT when I unplug the mouse, cursor goes away.  Anyone found another way to resolve this?

[Shane]

Hi Gerald,

Enabling mouse keys solved a different problem with the same symptoms on Windows 2000. Under Windows 8/10/10.1, the system can switch into "tablet mode" if there is no keyboard/mouse attached. I haven't found a solution for this yet. The current workaround is to keep a mouse plugged into the slave computer.

Regs,

Shane.

[mams trading]

i have found a solution...

go to control panels

then ease of access center

setup mouse keys

then turn on mouse keys 

turn on mouse keys with left alt + left shift + num lock

then you can able to visit the cursor in windows 8,10

[rhi...@gmail.com]

Yup it is now 2019, and I am a tester for our upgrade to Win 10 and guess what, still an issue, no cursor. Great Job we're only 10 years in , take to your time to fix this defect.

PS- I do really love the program, but the whole cursor nonsense is quite ridiculous

[Shane]

Hi,

I am aware of this problem and that it's been dragging on for too long. I would dearly love to have a simple fix for it. The issue is related to Windows 8 and 10. Windows 8/10 will force the cursor to remain hidden if there is no physical mouse connected (or mousekeys isn't turned on). To date, there isn't a programmatic way to make it to show the cursor (there are API calls to cause the cursor to show, but on Win8/10 they do nothing without a mouse connected). 

Short of Microsoft providing a way to controlling this from within an application, the only other feasible option I've got is to develop a low-level mouse driver that will simulate a USB-connected mouse to trigger Windows to show the cursor. This is a complicated solution and I'm still looking for alternatives before I have to go down this path.

Regs,

Shane.

[Silvermane Starlight]

This solved my issue. Though I am far too lazy to connect a mouse to the slave computer. Two things happened mere hours before I saw this issue:

• Logitech "G Suite" (an application for managing the mouse driver for Logitech gaming mice) was uninstalled
• The latest (as of 31/07/2019) Windows feature update was installed.

Removing Logitech software was what made the issue show up the first time.

I used the "search the start menu" feature to search for "Turn Mouse Keys on or off", then used TAB and the spacebar to turn this option on. Now the mouse pointer is not invisible.

It appears as though some third-party driver software can stop Windows PCs from entering Tablet mode. If anyone wants to test this, I'd imagine plugging in a mouse (any mouse), installing the Logitech G Suite, then removing the mouse would be a sufficient test for that software's ability to stave off this particular issue.

[Josh PHS]

This worked for me. Thank you. (two windows 10 machines on current updates as of 9/3/2019 using Input director 1.4.2 and a slave machine that is loading a domain profile that has never had any mouse installed. 

[Josh PHS]

Have you stumbled on to this during your adventure down the HID emulation rabbit hole?  I think this might be the info you're looking for. :) 

http://www.keil.com/pack/doc/mw/USB/html/group__usbd__hid_functions.html#USBD_User_HID_Mouse_UCT