Keep the system mouse cursor visible while a mouse-emulation profile is active (HTPC / controller-as-mouse)

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#18 6 comments 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
desktop

Research direction

Start by locating where profile activation and mouse-emulation stick movement are handled, then trace how DS4Windows sends cursor input on Windows. Verify the behavior with a controller-only setup: the system pointer should become visible when mouse emulation activates or first moves, without requiring the registry workaround.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Use case

I run my PC connected to a TV and use a DualSense as a mouse to navigate
Windows and launch games from the couch (left stick = cursor, Cross = left
click, Circle = right click). DS4Windows handles this really well and it's the
main reason I use it on this machine.

Problem

Windows hides the system cursor when no physical mouse is present / until a real
mouse moves. When I drive the cursor purely with the controller, the pointer is
invisible even though hover and clicks work normally — icons highlight, clicks
register, there's just no visible pointer. That makes a controller-as-mouse
setup hard to use.

The only workaround I've found is setting EnableCursorSuppression = 0 (DWORD)
under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and
rebooting. That's a global, manual registry change that's awkward to recommend
to less technical users.

Request

When a profile with mouse emulation becomes active (or the moment the
mouse-emulation stick first produces movement), DS4Windows could force the
system cursor to show.

Thanks for reviving the project.

Dominant language
C#
Stars
272
Forks
10
Avg merge
13d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
1

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