Change the system mousepointer

Hi,

I'm using an activex component which has a very annoying habit: whenever
I call a given method, it changes the system mouse pointer to an hourglass.
Since the method takes several seconds to run, this is very annoying.

Is there some way to workaround this (I don't have access to the source code
of the activex)?  I don't want the mousepointer to change.

Thanks in advance,
Fernando