Alt-F4 stopped working

[nicholasburger]

The shortcut/accelerator Alt-F4 recently stopped working on my
computer (XP, SP2). It's the strangest thing, I press the key
combinations and nothing happens. Crtl-F4 doesn't appear to work,
either. As far as I can tell, however, all of the other keys/key-
combos work okay. (That said, I don't use many other f-key
shortcuts).

I recently brought my home computer to work and set it up here with a
different keyboard, a Dell/Logitech RT7D10. I've tried installing the
Dell hotkeys support (which actives the media buttons, but doesn't
solve the F-key issues). I also went out an got a standard MSFT PS/2
keyboard, no luck there either. I get the sense that some of these
keyboards have an F-lock feature that disables the function keys, but
I don't see and hardware support for that with this keyboard (no F-
lock key). I suppose that could be software supported, however.

Any ideas here? I never realized how much I used Alt-F4 until I lost
it.

 

[Guest]

I suspect it's the keyboards. See if the 'onscreen keyboard" (at
start/.../accessories/accessibility/onsreen keyboard) can do alt-F4 or not.

 

[nicholasburger]

The on-screen keyboard send the alt-f4 just fine, you're right. Any
idea what specifically about the keyboards is problematic or how to
fix it (both keyboards I've tried are basic, but with a few hotkeys.
One is PS/2 and one USB, neither worked)?

A little additional info:
The previous keyboard I had on this machine was a microsoft natural
pro (PS/2), with Intellitype 5.2 installed. After looking around on a
few sites, I tried re-installing Intellitype. That got ctrl-F4
working, but not Alt-F4. Admittedly, Intellitype isn't designed for
this keyboard (since it's Dell-branded, not a Microsoft).

 

[Guest]

It's likely to be drivers for the keyboard.

Go to Start/Run, and type DEVMGMT.MSC , highlight the keyboard device,
Action menu, "Uninstall", then restart Windows, to find the device drivers
again automatically.

 

[nicholasburger]

I uninstalled/reinstalled the driver, but not luck. However, I did
find a workaround, which I'll put in a separate post.

Thanks for your trying, Mark.

 

[nicholasburger]

After additional searching, I finally found a workaround. It's
describe nicely here:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2005/11/29/431762.aspx

Basically, I think my computer was booting with the F-lock key in the
"on" state, even though the USB keyboard I'm using doesn't have an F-
lock key. I (re)installed MS Intellitype (6.x) and then used the code
on the page listed above to replace the command.xml file. I believe
this just tells Intelligype to not both mapping hundreds of specific
specialty keys, but instead just maps the regular F1-12 keys to the f-
locked function keys. Alt-F4 now works again, which is a disturbingly
huge relief.