Cursor appears as rectangular block

[Andy Ossell]

The cursor on my Windows XP box has changed from the
usual thin, vertical line to a rectangular block.

This happens in all programs (Internet Explorer, Word,
etc), and has happened ever since I recently formatted
the hard drive and reinstalled Windows.

How do I get the cursor back to normal

 

[Jose Francisco]

Greetings,

Follow these steps below to get your cursor back:

1) Start > Control Panel
2) Mouse
3) Click on the "Poniters" tab
4) And the "Scheme" to none

Thanks and best of luck!

 

[Mike B]

I've seen similar things to this before. In my case, it
ended up being a hosed processor...at first it starts out
at random places in Windows, then it happens all of the
time. You think it's monitor problem, a mouse problem, a
video card problem, a windows problem, then a motherboard
problem, a memory problem. But in the end swapping out
processors worked.

If you can swap out memory and processor, try that first.

MB

 

[Mike Bynum]

The cursor on my Windows XP box has changed from the
usual thin, vertical line to a rectangular block.

This happens in all programs (Internet Explorer, Word,
etc), and has happened ever since I recently formatted
the hard drive and reinstalled Windows.

How do I get the cursor back to normal

Andy,

In Control Panel, under Accessibility Options, click the Display tab and
move the Width slider to narrow. That should get your cursor back to
normal.

Mike

 

[Andy Ossell]

Thanks for the reply

I should have been more clear - it's not the mouse cursor
that is the problem.

For instance, if I click in a text box in any
application, normally there is a blinking cursor that is
different from the mouse cursor.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Andy

Sounds like you may be in "insert" mode.

Hit Ins key to toggle on/off.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP