What does the "Hide pointer while typing" feature actually do?

Question

I'm curious about this feature, which has been part of Windows for as long as I can remember. Maybe even Windows 95 or 98.

To me, it means exactly what it says. The mouse cursor should become invisible as I'm typing. OS/X has this feature, and it actually works. However, from what I can tell either:

• It's completely broken on Windows and has been forever.
• It's up to the App to implement this feature, or call into some API or OS hook to implement it properly.

So far, this is what I've found:

• Notepad, as I recall, works and respects this setting. I can't test right now because I have Notepad2, which replaces Notepad. Notepad2 does not respect this setting.
• Visual Studio does not.
• IE does not.
• Microsoft Word does, but it actually hides the mouse cursor regardless of whether or not this setting is enabled. Perhaps the Office team implemented this functionality internally.
• Some SKUs of Windows seem to behave differently. For example, I have one friend that says the feature works for IE, but he's on a Surface.

Has anyone found an app that will actually hide the mouse cursor if and only if this setting is enabled? If no such app exists, does this checkbox actually do anything? From a Windows API point of view, what OS hooks are provided that developers are supposed to use to take advantage of this feature?

Solution

The Hide pointer while typing feature does not do the work of hiding the pointer. All it does is set the value of the Mouse Vanish system parameter. This is a value that can be queried using the SystemParametersInfo() WIN32 API function passing the constant SPI_GETMOUSEVANISH.

Applications should query this parameter and, if the parameter is set to TRUE, hide the mouse pointer when there is typing.

A few applications honor this setting, for example the editor in the Eclipse IDE.

Most applications ignore it completely. The text editor used by Stack Exchange sites does not hide the cursor while typing.

Ironically quite a few Microsoft applications ignore the setting and hide the cursor anyway. For example Word 2010, and Notepad on Windows 10.

Comments

[Doochz]

On my Win7 machine, it works in Notepad and Word 2010. It does NOT work in Chrome and Notepad++. I really wish it would work in those programs.

[Mike Christensen]

@gus - Are you saying those apps respect the setting? Or those apps hide the mouse cursor while you're typing, regardless of the setting?

[Doochz]

I originally thought Notepad and Word2010 were respecting the Hide setting in Pointer Options. After reading your comments I tested the behavior with the Hide setting deselected, and confirmed that Notepad and Word2010 are hiding the mouse pointer during typing REGARDLESS of the Hide setting in Pointer Options. So this feature of Windows appears to be utterly broken or somehow not even coded for in MS's own major programs.

[Mike Christensen]

@gus - And has been since... like.. the 90s. That's hilarious. They should at least just remove the feature if it's never been implemented. It's still there in Windows 10 even!

[Bort]

Perhaps applications no longer respect it, but it's still there for legacy purposes, just in case something does.

[Mike Christensen]

@Bort - You'd think hiding the cursor would be something handled at the OS level, regardless of whether the application supports it. Plus, I don't think it's has ever worked.. I've been laughing about that feature not working since Windows 98!

[Artif3x]

It's actually much worse than what you say. On my machine, in Outlook 2016, the mouse cursor appears and disappears randomly, sometimes resulting in a very distracting blinking animation. It's what sent me here via Google. So far, there are no fixes that I can find. Interestingly, I'm using Opera right now and this option is functioning properly.

[eunoia]

For anyone looking for an app to mimic this functionality, check out the answer here

[TOOGAM]

So the OS represents a repository of data, storing the desired value for the option, but the OS doesn't initiate the functionality of checking. No wonder this isn't being seen as widely supported. Sigh. I wonder if more parts of Microsoft Windows support this, e.g. when saving a file, or when typing a path in the top of a window.

[Mike Christensen]

Wow, thanks for the technical info! I had gone so far as to ask actual developers on the Windows team at Microsoft and none of them knew the answer! I even had one file a bug in Windows 10, but it got resolved as "Won't Fix" because it worked the same in Windows 8. I think they should remove the setting, or make it work like OS/X (where it hides regardless of application).