Bumrusher89 wrote on 2021-03-04, 14:19:
I am thinking about use the Startup directory for activating Cutemouse
Why do you want to load cutemouse inside Windows?
If you want Windows to use it (a) it has to be loaded before Windows starts and (b) are you aware that Windows doesn't need a DOS mouse driver installed?
If you want to load it for DOS programs that you start inside Windows, then you either (a) need to start it before Windows starts, or (b) need to start it inside every single DOS session in Windows, because each one is like a separate virtual machine which starts out with whatever was loaded before Windows started. I can't remember if there is a way to get option (b), like the equivalent of an AUTOEXEC.BAT which is run inside every new DOS prompt. You could probably make a .PIF file for your DOS prompt which runs cutemouse and then COMMAND /K or whatever starts an interactive version of COMMAND.COM. This is a useful thing to do, because it means you can also start DOS prompts without cutemouse loaded, i.e. with a bit more memory free, for applications that don't need it. The more things you can load inside the DOS window, rather than before you start Windows, the better your options for when you need more RAM for one program.
Simply running cutemouse during Windows startup will open a DOS session to run cutemouse and then that session will terminate. When you run a TSR directly from Windows it will show a message saying that the window is being kept open so that you can use the TSR, but that's not much use with cutemouse, it's more useful for a TSR that is activated with a hotkey - the message says it's for your "pop-up application". But in any case this wouldn't make cutemouse available for subsequent DOS sessions.