I know there's already a couple of posts about IE cursor issues, but this one is slightly different I think.
If you set the overlayCSS backgroundColor property to an empty string or 'transparent', IE will not change the cursor when blocking the UI. E.g. $.blockUI({ message: null, overlayCSS: { backgroundColor: '' }, fadeIn: 0, fadeOut: 0 }); The above will not change the cursor in IE. I have worked round this by setting the overlay properties to white with zero opacity instead, which does produce the correct cursor behaviour: $.blockUI({ message: null, overlayCSS: { backgroundColor: '#fff', opacity: 0 }, fadeIn: 0, fadeOut: 0 }); I guess this is more of a tip for anyone else who encounters the same issue.