When a computer freezes, why are we able to move the cursor around freely while everything else is frozen?
In: Technology
In that scenario, the whole computer hasn’t frozen. Only some aspect — the User Interface, or some underlying service that the UI relies on.
Mouse events are typically interrupt-driven. That is, when the mouse is moved, the CPU is “interrupted” from whatever it was doing (such as the UI or system service being in a crashed state), moves the mouse cursor, then resumes whatever it was doing (going back to the UI/service being crashed).
In a “true” or total crash, you’ll lose the mouse cursor as well.
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