I made a mouse pointer change, and now I'm sorry.

I enjoy the default W7 games of Hearts, Freecell, and Spider.

For some very unreasonable moment, I decided to change the mouse pointer while I was engaged in a Hearts game. I minimized, went into Control Panel and changed to a larger, black pointer.

Almost immediately, when back into the game, the screen started flickering and jumping. This problem only occurs inside of the games because I closed down and worked elsewhere on the pc with no issues.

I shut down, then rebooted. Same problem only inside of games. I then went back into C/P - Hardware - Mouse and changed back to default; Apply, and then rebooted. Same problem only inside of games.

I'm wondering if I should uninstall the games and then re-install?

do you have a system restore point that you can go back to ?

scrooge

No.

I do monthly regular imaging backups (second hd, & dvd), so I turn System Restore off.

I'd go with the uninstall/reinstall of the windows games as done through the control panel. Rebooting in between.

Sometimes it helps to turn the Games feature off, then back on with a restart after each action.

Games should be at the very top: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5023-windows-features-turn-off.html

Yes, I did that procedure.
Turned the Games feature off; rebooted; turned the Games feature back on; rebooted.

Unfortunately, the flickering and jumping persists.

Looks like I'm bringing back my latest image.

You could try using different mouse pointers then going back to default to see if that will get it to behave.

Changed a few times, including "none"; then went back to default each time with reboots.

Did not fix the issue.

Lesson learned: do not kanoodle with your mouse settings while a game is open.

Hard to believe that caused a major upset but we are talking Windows.

No more kanoodling.