Steam Link missing mouse cursor / pointer solution

[Corvus]

Hello Everyone! Recently I have been using my Steam Link to stream from my main PC to the living room TV, and sometimes I like to switch out of Big Picture mode and use it like a normal desktop to browse the web or use programs other than Steam, except I had encountered issues like many others seem to have where the mouse cursor was invisible.

Luckily I found a solution using a different method that worked for my machine, which is running Windows 10 Pro.

To solve the issue, I had to go to Windows Settings > Ease of Access > Mouse and switch on "Control your mouse with a keypad". I have no idea why this fixed it, and it does not seem to change the actual keypad/numpad functionality, but it did solve my issue.

I can now see the mouse cursor at all times and in all applications when streaming via the Steam Link. I hope this fixes it for anyone else who was experiencing the same issue.

[Vnc]

Did that on the host computer and did work. Thanks.

[kalyway]

Thank you so much for posting this! Worked on my computer as soon as I turned it on.

[Petr Stránský]

Worked for me as well. Thanks!

[0263]

This happens on my setup also:
(host) is a PC with windows 11
(steamlink) is a macbook laptop (arm)

Turns out the PC need to have a mouse connected, I notice the mouse cursor is missing if I took my wireless mouse from the PC and use it on my mac. To prevent this, I just need to connect my old usb mouse to my PC.

That's probably why "Control your mouse with a keypad" is also working.

[Psist Wu]

As 0263 said, having a mouse connects to the host fixes the missing cursor. I guess that the "mouse" can be either a physical one or a virtual one. (When one enables "Control your mouse with a keypad," the Windows system creates a virtual mouse HID, I guess.)

Based on the hypothesis, I can think of two other approaches:
The first is connecting a dummy mouse USB plug, which I haven't tested.
The other one is Remote Desktop, which works perfectly in my own case. Assuming the host runs Windows 10/11 Pro, one can connect to it via Remote Desktop and then disconnect using command `tscon.` This procedure will also (I guess) create a virtual mouse HID in the system.

[kiha]

This Windows option really works fine with no mouse and keyboard connected to host pc thx a lot.