You need to put the code in the event that you want the mouse pointer to change...

i.e.

form1.mousepointer = vbhourglass
doevents

You should use a do events afterwards to make sure windows paints the screen (99% of the time not a problem.. but..)

If you put it in the load event is will only happen when the form is loaded into memory. To get it to reload you need to "unload" the form the laod it again..