Windows 7 Pointers & Mouse Settings for left-handed people

November 15th, 2009 . Filed under: Tips. Tags: Cursor, Mouse, Pointer

Left-handed people are sometimes placed at a slight disadvantage by the prevalence of right-handed tools, since most of them are designed to be comfortably used with the right hand. This may apply in the case of Windows too!

left cursor

This tip may therefore interest the left handed people as it will tell you where to get the pointers/cursors and how to change the mouse settings too.

You can download cursors for left handed persons from Microsoft.

Now in your C:\Windows\Cursors folder, create a new folder called LeftHanded.

Decide which size pointers you want to use & download the following six left-handed mouse cursor files that correspond to this size.

a.   aero_arrow_left.cur
b.   aero_busy_left.cur
c.   aero_helpsel_left.cur
d.   aero_link_left.cur
e.   aero_pen_left.cur
f.   aero_working_left.cur

Now, open the Mouse Properties via Control Panel and select the Pointers tab. In the Scheme drop-down list box, select “Windows Aero (large) (system scheme)”, if it isn’t already selected. Click Save As and name your new scheme “LeftHanded”. Press OK.

mouse properties

In the Customize list, select the Normal Select pointer. Click Browse and go to C:\Windows\Cursors\LeftHanded. Select “aero_helpsel_left”. Click Open. Similarly set the other remaining Mouse pointers. Finally click Apply > OK.

Next, you may want to swap the Left & Right Mouse Buttons. To do so, again open the Mouse Properties dialog box via the Control Panel. In the Buttons tab, select Switch primary and secondary buttons. Click Apply > OK.

Hat tip Blake Handler.