32-bit Windows cursor images
When taking a screenshot of Windows, the cursor is never included, which can be detrimental to your objective. Some screenshot tools will fake the cursor afterwards, but they never add the cursor shadow. I can’t find any screenshot tool that will draw a real or realistic cursor shadow, and the drop shadow effect cannot be replicated in Photoshop 7.
Thus, I was forced to do it the hard way: install the free Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft, install Windows 2000 afresh under virtualisation, and screenshot Virtual PC to capture the cursor. Then, use Photoshop to transfer the shadow from the image to the layer mask to create a 32-bit image. Although I’ve since moved on to Photoshop 7, it was not co-operating and I had to return to 5 to set up the layer mask to get the correct opacity level.
As such, these are 99% authentic 1 cursors with shadow. They’re free for use in screenshots for any purpose, by anyone, anywhere. Each cursor is available as a 32-bit PNG and as a Photoshop document.
For now, I have only produced some basic, common cursors. If you need another 24-bit or lower cursor converting, just ask. Note that, for the sake of Internet Explorer, the preview images are not 32-bit.
| Cursor | Download as | |
|---|---|---|
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PNG | PSD |
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PNG | PSD |
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PNG | PSD |
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PNG | PSD |
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PNG | PSD |
I added the Vista Aero cursor at Shinaku’s suggestion, taken from a Softpedia screenshot of Vista on Vista in Virtual PC and tweaked to remove the grey background, augmented with the help of Alan Le’s Vista cursors for XP. Although it’s a 32-bit cursor, it’s effectively indistinguishable from the real thing, but I am not doing that again.
Plain awkward cursors
Sometimes it’s not the shadow that’s the problem, but simply cursors that cannot be captured at all. Here are a couple:
| Cursor | Download as | |
|---|---|---|
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PNG | PSD |
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PNG | PSD |
