In many applications you have one or more secondary cursors.
Typically, that cursor was brightly highlighted when you were in that
particular panel or window, but it faded to a pale color when you gave
the focus to another panel or window. Outlook Express is a program
that uses this feature a lot. For example, when using the newsreader
mode, the primary focus indicates whether the arrow keys will move
between groups or between posts. When you are moving among the posts,
you can look at the secondary cursor to figure out which newsgroup you
are in, but...

One of my computers now has an almost invisible secondary cursor. Not
just OE, but several other programs that use this feature are
affected, and all of the programs are harder to use.

So far I have spent some months trying to diagnose the problem. There
does not seem to be anything special about this computer in comparison
to my other computers which do not show the problem. No unusual or
unique software, etc. I've searched the newsgroups without coming up
with any likely leads. I've also searched the Microsoft support sites
and come up with nothing (as usual there).

I do suspect it is some kind of palette problem, though changing the
color settings has no effect. It doesn't happen all of the time, but
most of the time, and so far I haven't been able to spot any pattern
there.

/wild guess

Reinstall DirectX whatever-version-you-are-using
or, if brave, a newer version.

/end wild guess

also:

turn down video card hardware acceleration one
tick at a time, restarting each time, to see if it
has any effect.

"Shannon Jacobs" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In many applications you have one or more secondary cursors.
> Typically, that cursor was brightly highlighted when you were in that
> particular panel or window, but it faded to a pale color when you gave
> the focus to another panel or window. Outlook Express is a program
> that uses this feature a lot. For example, when using the newsreader
> mode, the primary focus indicates whether the arrow keys will move
> between groups or between posts. When you are moving among the posts,
> you can look at the secondary cursor to figure out which newsgroup you
> are in, but...
>
> One of my computers now has an almost invisible secondary cursor. Not
> just OE, but several other programs that use this feature are
> affected, and all of the programs are harder to use.
>
> So far I have spent some months trying to diagnose the problem. There
> does not seem to be anything special about this computer in comparison
> to my other computers which do not show the problem. No unusual or
> unique software, etc. I've searched the newsgroups without coming up
> with any likely leads. I've also searched the Microsoft support sites
> and come up with nothing (as usual there).
>
> I do suspect it is some kind of palette problem, though changing the
> color settings has no effect. It doesn't happen all of the time, but
> most of the time, and so far I haven't been able to spot any pattern
> there.