Install under Windows user account doesn't work

[fblais]

Hi. Windows 10 Pro here. Have trouble installing this to user account. I'm entering the admin password when prompted, it "seems" to install, but then the theme is not visible in the list. Rebooting didn't help. Thanks for looking at this!

P.S. Install on admin account is no problem.

[ful1e5]

Have you tried the option "Run as administrator" by right-clicking on the install script?

[fblais]

Yes, it's then that I'm prompted for the admin password, etc. like described in the firt post.

[ful1e5]

I'm not a Windows user, but someone in the community can help you with this issue.

[fblais]

Thanks. Still waiting for this help to show up. :)

Regards.

[stanio]

The install.inf script copies the cursor files into the system directory (C:\Windows\Cursors or more generally %SYSTEMROOT%\Cursors), so it asks for administrative privileges. The custom cursor themes are otherwise installed/defined for the current user – see the registry keys:

• HKCU\Control Panel\Cursors
• HKCU\Control Panel\Cursors\Schemes

It seems your user cannot elevate a process (via UAC) as administrator but runs with a different (administrator) user, so it sets up the cursors just for that user.

You may:

• Manually define a cursor theme by selecting the individual cursors ("Browse..."):

  

  then "Save As..." a theme with a name of your choice. You may use the files already copied to %SYSTEMROOT%\Cursors\Bibata...; or

• Export the HKCU\Control Panel\Cursors registry tree from the administrator that has installed the cursors previously, and import it to your user.

If one doesn't have any administrative privileges, they may extract the cursors into their profile, f.e. %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Cursors, and use the first approach suggested above. Dunno if the install.inf could do this by default.

[fblais]

Thanks Stanio! I copied the cursors to my user appadata folder, then choosed the individual cursors one by one and saved that into a Bibata theme with success, thanks again!

[stanio]

If one doesn't have any administrative privileges, they may extract the cursors into their profile... Dunno if the install.inf could do this by default.

Saving this here for future reference – yes, it is possible:

• Using Dirids (INF Files, Windows Driver Installation):

  Value	Destination Directory
  10	Windows directory. This is equivalent to %SystemRoot%.
  53	User profile directory

The user profile (home) directory is equivalent to %USERPROFILE%. So something like:

 [DestinationDirs]
-Scheme.Cur = 10,"%CUR_DIR%"
+Scheme.Cur = 53,"%CUR_DIR%"

 [Scheme.Reg]
-HKCU,"Control Panel\Cursors\Schemes","%SCHEME_NAME%",,"%10%\%CUR_DIR%\...,%10%\%CUR_DIR%\...,..."
+HKCU,"Control Panel\Cursors\Schemes","%SCHEME_NAME%",,"%53%\%CUR_DIR%\...,%53%\%CUR_DIR%\...,..."

 [Strings]
-CUR_DIR             = "Cursors\Bibata-..."
+CUR_DIR             = "AppData\Local\Cursors\Bibata-..."

However, given INF files are primarily meant for device driver installation, it seems Windows will ask for elevated rights anyway. In this regard, install.inf is probably not the best tool for installing mouse cursors for a single user, while it is a convenient built-in facitlity to do so. An install.bat doing series of copy and reg add commands, instead of the INF CopyFiles and AddReg directives, may be better – just like the current uninstall.bat. It would require more work for someone to write one.

From Reg - Edit Registry - Windows CMD (SS64.com):

Elevation

Unlike REGEDIT, REG.exe does not always require elevation When adding an item to HKCU, REG will be automatically manifested “asInvoker”, and will work without elevation, when adding an item to HKLM then it does need to be run elevated.

[stanio]

Saving this here for future reference – yes, it is possible...

However, I've identified an unpleasant shortcoming related to (what it seems) the "user profile preloading" Windows feature. Haven't tried if it occurs with that feature disabled (if possible?) but I've noticed after a system restart the mouse cursors are not applied on the login screen. They are not applied even after login until one opens the "Mouse Properties" control panel and clicks "OK" to the already selected mouse pointer scheme.

This all appears related to the fact the "Mouse Properties" control panel automatically replaces paths under the user profile with %USERPROFILE%\... prefix:

> reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Cursors" /s

and I speculate this fails to resolve before the actual login. After login, the user profile preloading has already set the cursor scheme while failing to resolve the cursor files.

I've also noticed the new (Windows 10+) "Accessibility > Mouse pointer" (Change pointer size and color) settings – they dynamically generate cursor (bitmap) files from SVG sources into %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Cursors but they appear to update the Registry with full paths:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\...

and that doesn't suffer from the given problem.