Before I start, yes, I know, this has been discussed many many times before. I have read so many threads about this that I have lost count. But they didn't help. My game uses D3D8 and DInput. I'm trying to hide the cursor when the game is running, but nothing works. I create the mouse device with GUID_SysMouse and DISCL_FOREGROUND | DISCL_EXCLUSIVE. The docs says that if you create the mouse device with GUID_SysMouse and exclusive mode the cursor is removed from the screen. But that doesn't happen. I have the same problem in windowed and fullscreen. In windowed if I move the cursor outside the game's window and click, it's my game that responds. The cursor can not affect anything else on screen. I tried using ShowCursor(FALSE), but nothing. Before you ask, yes I know that it uses an internal counter. I have not used SetCursor() anywhere and I'm sure I don't call ShowCursor() more than once at startup and once at exit. I have check the return value from ShowCursor() which is the new value of the display counter and I got some strange results. To be extra sure what is happening I tried calling the ShowCursor(FALSE) three times at startup and ShowCursor(TRUE) three times at exit and checked the return value. This is the result: Startup: ShowCursor(FALSE): dispCount:-1 ShowCursor(FALSE): dispCount:-2 ShowCursor(FALSE): dispCount:-3 These values are correct as the display counter should start at 0. Though the cursor is not hidden after these calls. Exit: ShowCursor(TRUE): dispCount:-4 ShowCursor(TRUE): dispCount:-3 ShowCursor(TRUE): dispCount:-2 Strange that somehow the display counter is now on -4. I don't understand how that can be. I only use ShowCursor() in two places in the whole source code. Any ideas?

Oh, forget about the strange return values from ShowCursor, that's my fault. I called the functions in this order:

ShowCursor(FALSE);
ShowCursor(FALSE);
ShowCursor(FALSE);
mouse.Acquire();

ShowCursor(TRUE);
ShowCursor(TRUE);
ShowCursor(TRUE);
mouse.Unacquire();

when changed so that mouse.Unacquire() comes before ShowCursor(TRUE), the values makes sense. -1, -2, -3 then -2, -1, 0.

It seems DInput also calls ShowCursor() as that explains my strange return values.

But the problem remains as the cursor is still always visible.

I'm using SetCursor(NULL) in the message WM_SETCURSOR and it's fine. :)

SetCursor(NULL) in WM_SETCURSOR works, but that seems (to me) like a workaround and not a correct solution. Not the solution that I'm looking for anyway. Also, doing it with SetCursor(NULL) will be a major hassle for me.
I know it should be possible without the use of SetCursor() as I have managed to do it before. But that was a long time ago and I don't remeber how I did it and can't find that code. I probably don't remember because I didn't have any problems with it back then.

I have finally solved this problem. I found some info on a website about SetCursor() not working from a secondary thread. And as my game is multithreaded and all the game stuff is on a secondary thread, I thought, maybe that holds true for ShowCursor() aswell.

That it did. When calling ShowCursor() from the main thread (where the message pump is located) it works fine. No need for SetCursor(NULL).