Shadow for custom mouse cursor

Question

In the "new" Windows systems, it is possible to force the OS to draw a shadow under the mouse cursor:

However, user cursors in my Delphi application do not show shadow, even if this option is enabled. Do you have an idea how to arrange it so that Windows automatically adds a shadow? Or do I really need to check the user's preferences and conditionally draw a shadow for myself as Mike Lishke did ?

(This is a question that has been listening to me and others for some time:

• Custom mouse cursor shadow
• Custom cursor shadow
• Custom cursor with shadow )

Answer 1

No, you do not need to check the global user settings and draw the cursor yourself. You just need to provide an alpha channel cursor. Windows will use alpha blending to draw the cursor or not, depending on the user preference. Your cursors probably don't include the alpha channel, so the shadow never appears.