ever since I upgraded to mountain lion my cursor changed shape from an arrow to "cross hairs." How do I get it back to an arrow?

I'm having this problem too for the past few days (didn't notice it when I first upgraded to Moutain Lion but it just started 2 days ago), but have only noticed it in Safari so far - my cursor turns to a crosshair whenever I mouse over a link or any interactive element. Restarting doesn't help.

EDIT: Just checked again, it's doing it in other programs now too, same as yours.

Just did some experimenting and I fixed it on my computer! My pointer is back to normal!

For me, the problem was caused by the Adobe PDF Viewer plugin in Safari. I noticed that when I would hit F3 for Expose, there was a blank window that said "Adobe PDF Viewer" attached to Safari, but when I tried to click on the window to open it, nothing would happen. I figured this might be causing my issue.

Then I found out that theAdobe PDF plugins aren't supported on the new versions of Safari, so I uninstalled them. Here's how:

1. Go to the folder : Your Hard Drive / Library / Internet Plug-ins.

2. If you see the files AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin and AdobePDFViewer.plugin, drag them to the trash.

3. Restart Safari. Pointer issue should be fixed.

I hope this helps!!

Another benficiary of the fix. Thank you!

😎

And another fixed.

I seem to recall this happening before but of course I forgot the fix. Why this suddenly misbehaved today I don't know as the plugins have been there again since I upgraded to Mountain Lion, I presume.

Thanks for the solution. It worked for me also

Best. Help. Ever. This was driving me nuts and I had no idea where to begin...many thanks!

Many thanks for you help from me too.

Had the same problem - not only in Safari, but also in microsoft office products. The fix above solved the issue. Thanks!!!

Upgraded to Mountain Lion a few months ago, but this issue only arose today.

Thanks for a simple fix!

Wow. Thanks a ton for this advice.

This also helped me, but it was hard to find this easy solution. Might there be a way to highlight this thread or others?

This helped me as well.

Thanks for posting this fix 829z.

Thanks, 829z, for your clear instructions about deleting the two adobe plugins. You were the only resource I found on the Internet to solve this annoying "crosshairs" problem that suddenly appeared today. Really do appreciate folks like you who take the time to help the rest of us!

(I wonder how in the world you managed to figure that out!)

This also solved my problem dropping the adobe plug ins