Since no one cursor shape can satisfy the needs of all applications, Windows lets your application change the shape of the cursor to suit its own needs.
In order to use a particular cursor shape, you must first retrieve a handle to it using the LoadCursor function. Once your application has loaded a cursor, it can use that cursor shape whenever it needs to.
Your application can control the shape of the cursor using either of two methods:
It can take advantage of the built-in cursor shapes that Windows provides.
It can use its own customized cursor shapes.
The following sections explain each method.