gHacks technology news » animated-cursor http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:02:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Use Custom Cursors in Windows http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/20/use-custom-cursors-in-windows/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/20/use-custom-cursors-in-windows/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:19:50 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/20/use-custom-cursors-in-windows/ The default cursor set that ships with Windows is not really friendly to the eye and it happens from time to time that I have to search for the cursor on the screen because it blends in nicely if the page has a similar background color.

Thankfully though Microsoft added an easy way to add custom cursor sets to Windows that are easy on the eyes and professional looking. They do change more visibly as well usually and are better to spot on any kind of screen.

Inspiration came from a Donation Coder forum entry. Users of the forum mentioned several mouse cursor sets and I immediately headed out and tried them out.

Installation is always the same. The custom cursor sets are extracted to your hard drive and contain the mouse cursor icons and a inf file that is used to add them to the mouse cursor schemes of Windows. Right-click that inf file and choose install from the menu.

Go to the Control Panel afterwards, click on mouse and there on Pointers. The newly installed custom cursor set shoud be available in the top pull down menu named Schemes.

Custom alpha blended (semi-transparent) mouse cursors by XsX

Custom alpha blended (semi-transparent) mouse cursors by XsX

Entis Cursors

entis cursors

Rainstik 2K and XP

rainstik

Carbon 6

carbon 6

Blue Glass Cursors

blue glass cursors

Mario Gant

mario cursor

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/20/use-custom-cursors-in-windows/feed/ 2 Send Windows to Nirvana with an animated cursor http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/31/send-windows-to-nirvana-with-an-animated-cursor/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/31/send-windows-to-nirvana-with-an-animated-cursor/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:23:34 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/31/send-windows-to-nirvana-with-an-animated-cursor/ One of the many disadvantages of every new Windows edition is the fact that the operating system becomes more and more bloated. Microsoft adds new features to Windows which could then be used to exploit the system. Instead of concentrating on fast efficient systems they produce heavy systems that look shiny but have problems under the surface. Recently a vulnerability in Windows Animated Cursor Handling was discovered. In order for this attack to be carried out, a user must either visit a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit the vulnerability or view a specially crafted e-mail message or email attachment sent to them by an attacker.

You might be interested in which Windows editions are effected and which are not. It would also be nice to know if your browsers and e-mail clients are vulnerable and can be used to exploit the system. Vulnerable are Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000 SP4. Several other Microsoft operating systems are affected as well like Windows Server 2003 but I think the first three cover most Windows editions that my readers use. Exploitation happens completely silently.

Take a look at the demonstration video below. It shows how Windows Vista enters a endless Crash-Restart loop caused by a malicious ani file which was dropped on the desktop. Attacks will most likely occur over the Internet.

A security company has released a temporary fix for the solution until an official Microsoft patch gets released.

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