Stardock CursorXP is a freeware program that enables users to have spectacular mouse cursors. Unlike the basic Windows mouse cursors, CursorXP mouse cursors can be both alpha blended and fully animated at the same time. It"s also incredibly easy to make your own mouse cursors with CursorXP as the different cursor states are just "bit strip" in PNG format (every frame of animation stored in a single .PNG file).
Stardock also makes CursorXP Plus which adds additional features to CursorXP such as color changing and changing the size of the cursor on the fly. There are hundreds of Stardock CursorXP mouse cursors available on most customization websites (including WinCustomize, deviantART, Skinbase, and elsewhere). You can download it at www.cursorxp.com.
New in version 1.31: Various performance tweaks along with support for 64bit Windows (for those of you with the AMD64).