Please FIX Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys

[Aneil Mallavarapu]

A lot of sites report that you can turn off sticky keys
using the control panel, but several people try this, and
still find the StickyKey feature" getting in their way.
The problem is due to the poorly designed control panel
which makes it look like features are OFF when they are in
fact ON. It turns out, that they need to turn off
FilterKeys and ToggleKeys, but how to do this is non-
obvious, since the control panel makes it look like these
features are OFF when they are in fact ON.

I can't paste a picture of my accessbility dialog box
here, but all of the checkboxes
for "StickyKeys", "FilterKeys" and "ToggleKeys" are off.
Seems like the features are OFF, right? Guess again.

You have to click on "Settings" for StickyKeys and
FilterKeys and TogglesKeys and uncheck the "Use shortcut"
checkbox.

If you don't uncheck ALL of these settings you'll get a
dialog box to popup (e.g., when you hold down the shift
key for too long) which says that "StickyKeys" are
enabled. Another user-interface bug. This leaves users
really puzzled and annoyed - they've turned off all the
redundant StickyKey settings that they could find, and
they never asked for this annoying feature in the first
place, yet they still get a dialog popping up interrupting
their typing, and they're confused about how to get the
keyboard to behave normally again.

Annoying.

Microsoft should fix this problem, which is a UI bug:

1) The Use Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys options in
Accessibility Options should work (i.e., we should not
have to go to "Settings" to turn the "Use shortcut" radio
buttons off.)
2) Get rid of the "Use shortcut" radios inside
settings - these are redundant with "Use
Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys" buttons in the Accessibility
Options dialog.
3) All these features should be OFF by default. I
personally have never met anyone who wants them.

Aneil Mallavarapu

 

[Sharon F]

A lot of sites report that you can turn off sticky keys
using the control panel, but several people try this, and
still find the StickyKey feature" getting in their way.
The problem is due to the poorly designed control panel
which makes it look like features are OFF when they are in
fact ON. It turns out, that they need to turn off
FilterKeys and ToggleKeys, but how to do this is non-
obvious, since the control panel makes it look like these
features are OFF when they are in fact ON.

I can't paste a picture of my accessbility dialog box
here, but all of the checkboxes
for "StickyKeys", "FilterKeys" and "ToggleKeys" are off.
Seems like the features are OFF, right? Guess again.

You have to click on "Settings" for StickyKeys and
FilterKeys and TogglesKeys and uncheck the "Use shortcut"
checkbox.

If you don't uncheck ALL of these settings you'll get a
dialog box to popup (e.g., when you hold down the shift
key for too long) which says that "StickyKeys" are
enabled. Another user-interface bug. This leaves users
really puzzled and annoyed - they've turned off all the
redundant StickyKey settings that they could find, and
they never asked for this annoying feature in the first
place, yet they still get a dialog popping up interrupting
their typing, and they're confused about how to get the
keyboard to behave normally again.

Annoying.

Microsoft should fix this problem, which is a UI bug:

1) The Use Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys options in
Accessibility Options should work (i.e., we should not
have to go to "Settings" to turn the "Use shortcut" radio
buttons off.)
2) Get rid of the "Use shortcut" radios inside
settings - these are redundant with "Use
Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys" buttons in the Accessibility
Options dialog.
3) All these features should be OFF by default. I
personally have never met anyone who wants them.

Aneil Mallavarapu

I think moving the box to turn off the keyboard shortcut to the same page
where you disable one of these features would be a good improvement. As
it is now, the keyboard setting is buried one level deep from the "do not
use" setting.

I have a game that uses the Shift key extensively. Up popped StickyKeys
interrupting game play. First try at disabling failed because I had missed the
shortcut key setting. Once found and disabled, the problem was gone.
Personally, I did not have to disable all of the *Keys as you mentioned.

 

[Larry James]

Annoying.

Microsoft should fix this problem, which is a UI bug:

1) The Use Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys options in
Accessibility Options should work (i.e., we should not
have to go to "Settings" to turn the "Use shortcut" radio
buttons off.)
2) Get rid of the "Use shortcut" radios inside
settings - these are redundant with "Use
Sticky/Filter/Toggle Keys" buttons in the Accessibility
Options dialog.
3) All these features should be OFF by default. I
personally have never met anyone who wants them.

Aneil Mallavarapu

I totally agree. This is about the most annoying bug in Windows
XP that I see. Many people have to reboot the computer to regain use
of their keyboard. After that bug pops on there's seems to be no way
out. You can't even navigate to a web site to try to find out what to
do because the "period" doesn't work any more.

I guess I understand that Microsoft wants to publicize it, so
they activate it by default. However, this publicity is really
driving people nuts when it comes on. I wish they would remove it.

-- L. James