I am having the same issue with my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. The cursor will not show up on older games. It is also operating on Vista 32-bit. I have Direct X 10 and all other drivers are up to date! The games that follow this pattern all work fine on my Vista 32-bit desktop. I think it maybe a touch pad issue...

I have installed an optical mouse on my laptop but the problem is still the same. No cursor.

Anyone else have a brainy idea for this problem??