Month: November 2014

My mouse pointer kept getting stuck between monitors in Windows 8.1

My mouse pointer kept getting stuck at the edge between monitors
My mouse pointer kept getting stuck at the edge between monitors

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a strange behaviour with Windows 8.1. I have two monitors and whenever I tried to move the mouse between them my mouse pointer got stuck in the middle.

I would have to back up the mouse pointer then move it really quickly to get over the ‘hump’, and reach the next monitor.

Not the charms bar

At first I thought it may be caused by the Windows 8 charms bar. So I switched off the top-right corner navigation under Charms bar > Settings > Change PC settings > PC and devices > Corners and edges.

But it turned out not to be that. The mouse pointer blocking behaviour continued.

Not ModernMix

My attention then turned to ModernMix™, a Windows 8 application from Stardock that allows Modern (Metro) apps to run in a standard window on your desktop.

I had noticed this behaviour only after I had installed ModernMix, so I reasoned that it must have caused it. And sure enough uninstalling ModernMix seemed to stop the behaviour… until I rebooted the PC.

But I didn’t discover this until after I had emailed Stardock support.

Registry hack fixes it

Stardock support were incredibly helpful. The following day I received this reply:

While I can reproduce what you are seeing, I can do so without MM installed. It seems it is a thing with 8.1:

http://winaero.com/blog/fix-mouse-pointer-sticks-on-the-edge-when-moving-between-multiple-monitors/

Please let us know if you should have any further questions/concerns.

And sure enough, the Winaero blog had the solution:

  1. Open Registry Editor (Ctrl + R, then type: regedit)
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
  3. If there is not a DWORD (32-bit) Value called MouseMonitorEscapeSpeed then create one and assign it a value of 1.
  4. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ ImmersiveShell \ EdgeUI.
  5. If there is not a DWORD (32-bit) Value called MouseMonitorEscapeSpeed then create one and assign it a value of 1.
  6. Reboot Windows, or restart the Explorer shell.

Detectorists

Detectorists

Over the last few weeks I’ve loved watching a beautifully-written, gentle comedy called Detectorists on BBC Four. Most episodes I’ve watched at least twice.

The show stars its writer and director Mackenzie Crook, who in an interview on BBC One Crook described the story as “an affectionate study of people and their pastimes”.

I love the intimacy and the seeming smallness of the show. There are TV shows that are fast-paced and sensationalist, dealing with spies and the security services, or investigating police cold cases, or hospital dramas dealing with life and death situations. So much TV is escapist, and I guess to an extent this is too, but there is so much real life in this series. It’s a celebration of the subtleties and the goodness found in every day life.

Detectorists centres around the lives and relationships of two friends, Andy and Lance, who share a love of metal detecting (which makes them detectorists) who are looking for the ship burial site of an ancient Saxon king.

The casting is brilliant, particularly Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Toby Jones as Lance, and Rachael Stirling as Andy’s girlfriend Becky. And the music is just sublime, a specially-written song by folk singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn.

The show has such beautifully written dialogues, like this one between Andy and Lance who are trying to decide where next to look for treasure.

Andy: This farm here… I don’t remember anyone going there before, do you? Look, this is the original Roman road running up the side. And where you’ve got Roman, who’s to say you haven’t got Saxon as well. We all know there’s a Saxon ship burial somewhere in this  part of the county. We’ve just got to find it first.

Lance: Saxon hoard? That’s basically the holy grail of treasure hunting.

Andy: Well, no, the holy grail is the holy grail of treasure hunting.

Lance: Well, if you’re going to be pedantic. The ark of the covenant is the holy grail. Let’s talk to Terry…

I don’t often buy TV series on DVD, but I definitely want to pick up Detectorists (BBC, 2014); I already have the theme tune, written by Johnny Flynn.