Where did my mouse pointer go?

Same problem here. It disappeared while viewing the planetary view after starting my first game. I'll try using the "Hardware Mousecursor" next.

Windows XP (German)
Nvidia 6800GT (Driver Version: 81.89)

Same problem here, NVidia GeForce 6600GT with latest drivers (WHQL).
Changing to hardware cursor after a reboot fixed it. I also use DirectX 9.0c with
the August update pack, whatever difference that makes.

Are any of you running programs that change your windows mouse cursor?

I can confirm that using hardware cursor is a workaround for this problem. But I hope this can be fixed soon anyway. The other cursor is way much nicer looking.

If you are not using the default Windows mouse cursor, please try turning it off and see if that works.

This used to happen to me when I played Battle for Middle Earth and I also have a Logitech rechargable laser mouse. One thing you can do to get the mouse cursor back is change the desktop resolution of the PC (by navigating with the keyboard to Control Panel -> Display, etc.) and then when Windows asks if you want to stay at the new resolution, you should have the mouse cursor back - even if you change back to your original resolution. I guess Windows reinitializes something when it changes the resolution that fixes the problem.

I eventually fixed it by installing the latest NVidia drivers, but since you've already tried that - it probably won't work for you. I hope this won't be a problem for me with this game (haven't finished downloading yet) but if it is, I'll try the Hardware Mouse thing.

Oooopppsssss was this your mouse pointer? Sorry I didn't mean to take it from you.....

If you do what Carielf suggested that should solve your problems.

Yeah it happened to me too.

It's certainly better than a game that resets your desktop resolution to 1024x768 EVERY DAMN time you start it up, and doesn't change it back.

More construtively, I used to play an old game called Stratosphere that did the same mouse cursor thing you guys are reporting. What I used to do to fix it was open up the Mouse Properties on the Control Panel, and switch to the Pointers tab before starting the game up.

When you exit the game and find your pointer gone, just click randomly until you've got the mouse window on top, and hit Enter. It used to work for me whenever mine disappeared, and you don't need to do anything as drastic as restarting. And if you forget to bring the screen up before your cursor disappears, you can always access it with keyboard controls afterwards.

Edit: I guess you could also just keep hitting Apply on the Pointers window if the pointer keeps disappearing through the game.

Same problem:

using default win mouse cursor; NV GF 6800GT; Logitech wired optical mouse.

Same problem, NV GF 5600 Ultra, using a Wacom Graphire 3 tablet, standard windows cursor.

My game was windowed when the bug occurred, and it only occurred once in a 4 hour game.

Did have to restart to get my mouse back, though.

I've switched to windowed mode, same resolution as my desktop. This gives me a
borderless game-window exactly the size of my screen, and software cursor seems to
be working fine. I'll keep using that and see if the cursor stays.

Using standard windows mouse pointer. I'll switch to the hardware mouse option in game and see if that helps.