Visual Studio Image Editor tools are disabled

Question

I've got a custom cursor file (32x32) in my project that I'm trying to edit in Visual Studio. But when I load it, all of the tools in the image toolbar are disabled. The only buttons enabled on the toolbar are the "magnification tool", "set hotspot tool" and "New Image Type (ins)" tool.

It's probably been 15 years since I've done any image editing in Visual Studio. I'm sure I'm missing something blatantly obvious. What do I have to do to be able to edit this thing?

(Note: I've checked that the file is not readonly.)

Answer 1

As per the documentation .cur is not a supported file format:

Note that the description referencing "bitmap" doesn't necessarily mean one/any of the .bmp file formats, it's also a generic term for a rectangular grid of pixels.

.cur is its own file format (more information) so you'll need to find an image editor that supports it.

In the past I've used a commercial tool from Axialis (trials available) but I believe the open-source GIMP image editor also supports editing them.