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Requirements for Animated Cursors

Article ID: 123334 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q123334

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SUMMARY

There are two requirements for animated cursors in Windows:

Protected-mode disk drivers
A Windows-compatible display driver that meets the specifications described later in this article.

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To use animated cursors in Windows, you must use protected-mode disk drivers. Protected-mode disk drivers are necessary because animated cursors require large amounts of page-locked memory (approximately 250 kilobytes). By using protected-mode drivers, this memory can be moveable. If Windows 95 allowed you to use animated cursors with real-mode disk drivers, you might not have enough memory to run your applications. If you use real-mode drivers, your cursors are in color (but not animated) as long as the Windows API call GetWinFlags() returns WF_DOSPAGING. Animated cursors will not be animated if they cannot perform SmartPageLocks or SmartPageUnlocks. The real-mode mapper prevents this.

Perform the following steps to determine if you are using protected-mode disk drivers:

Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click System.
Click Performance. If you are using protected-mode disk drivers the File System entry should read "32-bit."
If the File System entry reads "Some drives are using MS-DOS compatibility," click an item and then click Detail for more information about which drives are using MS-DOS compatibility mode.For additional information about troubleshooting MS-DOS Compatibility mode on hard disks, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
130179
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/130179/EN-US/ )
Troubleshooting MS-DOS Compatibility Mode on Hard Disks
138899
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138899/EN-US/ )
Description of the Ios.log File

Display Driver

To use animated cursors in Windows, you must also have a Windows- compatible display driver that uses the device-independent bitmap (DIB) engine and meets at least one of the following criteria:

The display driver must run at 8 bits per pixel (bpp) or higher and support color cursors.

NOTE: 256 colors = 8 bpp
-or-
The display driver must allow Windows 95 to access its memory in a linear fashion (such as through a frame buffer). This allows for smoother animation because Windows gains entrance to the driver during interrupt time.

The following are examples of display drivers that do not support animated cursors:

ATI Ultra (mach8). This driver does not support a frame buffer.
Diamond Viper. This driver is based on the Windows 3.1 video standard.
Standard Display Adapter (VGA). This driver is based on a standard established prior to the development of animated cursors.
Super VGA. This driver is based on a standard established prior to the development of animated cursors.

If your system meets the requirements described in this article but you still cannot use animated cursors, scan your computer for viruses. Boot-sector viruses can prevent animated cursors from being available.

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