I have just installed BF II and when I load the game the arrow on the first screen will drift and stay at the top left of the screen.

I presume it might be joystick related. Is there a way to disable joystick support in a config file?

Since you didn't provide much in the way of system information I'm going to say check the sensitivity of the mouse and joystick (both in-game and in the OS) or just unplug the joystick.

Well I have a pretty elaborate setup and unplugging anything is easier said than done. I was hoping there was a config file to be able to disable the joystick

I fly flight simulators and have a sim pit with 3 joystick cards, 2 MFD's a throttle, rudders and stick. So I am not going to mess with unplugging stuff.

Not sure how BF II is picking which device to use. I doubt it is the first or default in the Game Control panel. That is set for the stick which seems to work for games like Xwing