Mouse Sonar: Registry key? Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
(But, this feature has existed for many years, at least as old as XP.)

In Mouse Control Panel, under the Pointer Options tab, there's a checkbox option:

"Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key".

When this is selected, pressing the CTRL key causes concentric circles to appear around the mouse pointer, to help you find it quickly. IT's often called Mouse Sonar.

I want to enable this option, but my Mouse Control Panel does not have a Pointer Options tab. I installed a third-party hardware mouse, software and drivers, and they have hidden the Pointer Options tab. If I knew the Registry key for that option, I could enable it via regedit.

Anyone know the Registry key that enables or disables that option?

 

Hmm...never used that feature but I just tried it and it is working for me. There is some help here: Programmatically Changing Windows Mouse Cursors | The Bit Guru. I didn't read the whole thing so I don't know if that helps, but have a look.

Be sure to back up registry first if you make any registry changes.

Another, safer option, is to just make your pointer larger so that you can see it.

 

Thanks for the reply.

It works for you because you have the Pointer Options tab. It worked for me when I had the Pointer Options tab. That's the whole point: my current mouse software and driver removed or hid that tab, so I need another way to enable that option.

 

What brand of mouse pad do you have, it should be there for synaptics, but i don't know for brands like elantec, syntelic and ALPS. If you are using the Dell driver, you could try the generic driver too.

 

The software and drivers were installed for an external mouse. The external mouse's software/drivers removed or hid the Pointer Options tab.

On another computer, I had set the option first, prior to installing the external mouse. Even though the Pointer Options tab disappeared, the option's "enabled" setting remained in effect. So, I could solve this by uninstalling the external mouse software and drivers, then enabling the option, then reinstalling. But, if I could find the Registry key that would be cleaner and less work.

 

Just tried export reg before and after then using ultra compare to find difference and nothing came back.

Doesn't look promising. I would though it would of been under HKCU but manually searched it too and nothing that looks close.

 

Interesting stuff. Thanks!

 

Let us know if that works.

 

Hi,

I found this forum topic very interesting. The post of Indrek contains very valuable information. :thumbsup: I was actually looking into the same matter as well.
It is indeed true that that specific bit gets changed when you toggle the mouse locator on/off from the mouse control panel (main.cpl).
But changing the registry value does not enable/disable the mouse sonar, sadly enough. Apparently the mouse device driver (mouhid) reads these values at logon, so a restart or log-off/log-on is required after tweaking the registry.
I did not find a way to force a re-read of the values, as is the case when you make the change through the control panel item.

I quickly put together this VBScript while testing so my apologies if the coding is not 100%:

Code:

Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
Dim strComputer, oReg, strKeyPath, strValueName, strValue

strComputer = "."
 
Set oReg = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

strKeyPath = "Control Panel\Desktop"
strValueName = "UserPreferencesMask"

oReg.GetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, strValueName, strValue

strValue(1) = CInt(BinToDec(SetBit(DecToBin(strValue(1)))))

oReg.SetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, strValueName, strValue

Set oReg = Nothing

Function GetStatus(BinValue)

  If len(BinValue) = 8 Then
    GetStatus = CBool(Mid(BinValue,2,1))
  End if

End Function
 
Function SetBit(BinValue)

  If len(BinValue) = 8 Then
    SetBit = Mid(BinValue,1,1) & "1" & Mid(BinValue,3,len(BinValue))
  End if

End Function

Function DecToBin(DecValue)

  Dim bin

  For j = 7 To 0 Step -1
    If DecValue And (2 ^ j) Then
      bin = bin + "1"
    Else
      bin = bin + "0"
    End If
  Next

  DecToBin = bin

End Function

Function BinToDec(BinValue)

  Dim dec
  dec = 0

  For k = len(BinValue) To 1 Step -1
    If Mid(BinValue, k, 1) = "1" Then dec = dec + (2 ^ (len(BinValue)-k))
  Next

  BinToDec = dec

End Function

In my case, this didn't solve the problem as I wanted the change to be immediate. So I ended up using the following Powershell script:

Enable the mouse sonar:

Code:

$signature = @'
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(
    uint uiAction,
    uint uiParam,
    uint pvParam,
    uint fWinIni);
'@

$SPI_SETMOUSESONAR = 0x101D
$SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 0x1
$SPIF_SENDCHANGE = 0x2

$winapi = Add-Type -MemberDefinition $signature -Name WinAPI -PassThru
[void]$winapi::SystemParametersInfo($SPI_SETMOUSESONAR, 0, 1, $SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE -bor $SPIF_SENDCHANGE)

Disable the mouse sonar:

Code:

$signature = @'
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(
    uint uiAction,
    uint uiParam,
    uint pvParam,
    uint fWinIni);
'@

$SPI_SETMOUSESONAR = 0x101D
$SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 0x1
$SPIF_SENDCHANGE = 0x2

$winapi = Add-Type -MemberDefinition $signature -Name WinAPI -PassThru
[void]$winapi::SystemParametersInfo($SPI_SETMOUSESONAR, 0, 0, $SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE -bor $SPIF_SENDCHANGE)

I'm aware that this is already an old topic but I found information regarding this to be very limited on the internet. So I hope this is helpful to anyone.

Kind regards,

Pieter Pessemier