Mouse cursor is not shown in Excel

Question

My mouse cursor is not shown in Excel. I have a surface pro 9 and I think it has something to do with the touchscreen as the cursor is visible outside of excel. Thank you for your help

Answer 1

Hi Livlette,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I understand that your mouse cursor is not visible in Excel on your Surface Pro 9, and you suspect it might be related to the touchscreen. I am here to help and let us work on this together.

There are a few possible reasons for the missing mouse pointer problem in Excel on your Surface Pro 9. The cursor visibility may be obscured by a touchscreen interaction, a driver problem, software conflicts, or other background applications. To resolve this issue, please try the following steps:

1. Force the device to shut down and restart. Press and hold down the power button until your Surface shuts down and restarts and you see the Windows logo screen (about 20 seconds), then release the power button.
2. Run Surface Diagnostic Toolkit **** and check any pending updates available. You may also check optional updates. See: Fix common Surface problems using the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit (microsoft.com)
3. Check Cursor Settings in Excel:
   • Go to Excel Options (you can find this under the File tab).
   • Navigate to the Advanced section.
   • Ensure that the Show cursor option is enabled.
4. Check hardware acceleration in Excel.
   • Open Excel and click on the "File" tab.
   • Click on "Options" and then select "Advanced".
   • Scroll down to the "Display" section and make sure that the "Disable hardware graphics acceleration" option is checked.
   • Click "OK" to save the changes and then restart Excel.
5. Run the system file checker to check if there are corrupted system files that are just looping around causing this kind of issue to exist.  See Using System File Checker in Windows - Microsoft Support.

If none of these steps resolve the issue, kindly give answers to the following questions so we can further isolate your issue and formulate appropriate troubleshooting steps.

• Can you confirm which Surface pro 9 configuration do you have? The Intel or 5G?
• Does issue happen on a specific file or regardless of what files you opened?
• When did this issue started?
• Were there any changes made prior to this issue to happen?

I hope the provided solution works for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Lavenia

Answer 2

Hi Livlette,

We haven't heard from you, so we assume that your issue has already been addressed. We will not be monitoring this thread moving forward so, if you need further assistance, please create a new thread to discuss these concerns by clicking this link: Create a new question (microsoft.com).

Thank you for understanding. 

Kind regards,

Lavenia