Same question, new angle - Registry help

So, my mouse pointers still don't work, and I'm beginning to suspect that it has something to do with the registry.

Yes, yes, when the inexperienced and foolhardy play in the registry, bad things can happen, I know, but it doesn't keep me from fireworks, and it surely doesn't keep me from the registry.

But now I think that I may have broken it, specifically in the realm of mouse cursors.

Here's some back story: I made some mouse cursors from scratch using a program that does that sort of thing, packaged them up, and installed them onto my computer, using the standard method. I guess I came to a rough patch, because I ended up messing around with regedit, and now I have some strange behaviors occuring with the cursors, especially on boot (See here for the video. Ignore the background noise, I recorded this during an environmental science class).
As you can see, when the computer boots up, it gives me good ol' Windows Aero, but when I open up Mouse Pointers, it already has my theme selected, leaving me only to click 'ok', which is pretty much a major hassle.

The interesting bit is that I emailed the same set of cursors to a buddy who (unless I am mistaken) was also running Vista, and he had no problems with it, still doesn't, which of course, drives me nuts.

So, I'm pretty sure that I broke something, and I was wondering how I should go about fixing it, if there is an easy way. (System Restore really won't work, as this problem has been around for months on end)

Thank you for your time
KFJ