Ctrl-Space Column Selection No Longer Working

[MPW]

Recently, the Control+Space keyboard combination to select a column in
Excel (2003) stopped working. The Control and Space keys work fine on
their own and all other Control combinations work. Shift+Space for row
selection works also.

I'm not sure what I changed on my system to prompt this change, but
"Detect and Repair..." doesn't do anything, even if I have it reset all
my customization. I've tried removing all my Add-Ins, customized
toolbars, and Personal Macro Book to no avail. I have the EXACT same
configuration on my laptop and Ctrl+Space works fine on that machine.
I've been working with Excel for years and have never seen this
behavior.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dave Peterson]

It sounds like you tried all the things I would try.

But maybe you missed one.

If you start excel in safe mode:
windows start button|Run
excel /safe

And then just test it there, does it work?

Maybe you missed an addin.

 

[MPW]

Thanks Dave,

I gave that a shot to no avail. Even in safe mode, I still can't
select a whole column with Ctrl-Space. I'm about at the point of
writing a macro to put that functionality back into Excel, but I'd
really like to know exactly how this one key combination stopped
working. Thanks for your help!

 

[Dave Peterson]

Can you swap keyboards?

Thanks Dave,

I gave that a shot to no avail. Even in safe mode, I still can't
select a whole column with Ctrl-Space. I'm about at the point of
writing a macro to put that functionality back into Excel, but I'd
really like to know exactly how this one key combination stopped
working. Thanks for your help!

 

[kris.appelmans]

MPW schreef:

Recently, the Control+Space keyboard combination to select a column in
Excel (2003) stopped working. The Control and Space keys work fine on
their own and all other Control combinations work. Shift+Space for row
selection works also.

I'm not sure what I changed on my system to prompt this change, but
"Detect and Repair..." doesn't do anything, even if I have it reset all
my customization. I've tried removing all my Add-Ins, customized
toolbars, and Personal Macro Book to no avail. I have the EXACT same
configuration on my laptop and Ctrl+Space works fine on that machine.
I've been working with Excel for years and have never seen this
behavior.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

I have the same problem! Not only in excel, but in other programs as
well.

I can still do it this way:

Push RIGHT-CRTL+SPACE, release SPACE, push LEFT-CTRL, release
RIGHT-CRTL, push SPACE....

Any ideas? I think its a windows setting.

 

[Dallman Ross]

MPW schreef:

I have the same problem! Not only in excel, but in other programs
as well.

I can still do it this way:

Push RIGHT-CRTL+SPACE, release SPACE, push LEFT-CTRL, release
RIGHT-CRTL, push SPACE....

Any ideas? I think its a windows setting.

I'm wondering if you two haven't inadvertently turned on
Windows' Accessibility Options. (They can get turned on
if one absent-mindedly rests on one of the trigger keys,
such as Ctrl, for quite a few seconds.)

Go to the Control Panel and find Accessibility Options,
open them and turn them off if they're on. (And report
back here -- I'm now curious.)

-dman-

 

[Anonymous]

All StickyKeys are off.

Kris

I'm wondering if you two haven't inadvertently turned on
Windows' Accessibility Options. (They can get turned on
if one absent-mindedly rests on one of the trigger keys,
such as Ctrl, for quite a few seconds.)

Go to the Control Panel and find Accessibility Options,
open them and turn them off if they're on. (And report
back here -- I'm now curious.)

-dman-

 

[MPW]

Dman,

All Accessibility Options are turned off, always have been. I'm
throughly confused. I'm going to try Dave's suggestion of swapping
keyboards once I find a spare.

Thanks,

MPW

 

[MPW]

Kris,

I'm experiencing this same behavior. Ctrl+Space doesn't work, however
your sequence does work.

I can get Ctrl+Space to work if I hold down one of the Ctrl keys, hit
and release Space, hold down the other Ctrl key, release the first Ctrl
key and hit Space again. That selects the column. This is really odd.
I checked the keyboard settings and they are normal too.

Anyone have any further advice? Thanks for the help so far.

- MPW

 

[Dallman Ross]

Dman,

All Accessibility Options are turned off, always have been.
I'm throughly confused. I'm going to try Dave's suggestion of
swapping keyboards once I find a spare.

Thanks for the feedback. Wish I had more ideas, but I don't.
Windows Auto-Updates? (I.e., a bug in same.)

-dman-

====================

 

[kris.appelmans]

Kris,

I'm experiencing this same behavior. Ctrl+Space doesn't work, however
your sequence does work.

I can get Ctrl+Space to work if I hold down one of the Ctrl keys, hit
and release Space, hold down the other Ctrl key, release the first Ctrl
key and hit Space again. That selects the column. This is really odd.
I checked the keyboard settings and they are normal too.

Anyone have any further advice? Thanks for the help so far.

- MPW

On my pc it turned out a Logitec video process that was doing this. I
killed the process and the problem stopped.

I then unistalled the Logitech webcam.

Kris

 

[Gord Dibben]

kris

Thanks for reporting the fix in your case.

Now we have it archived on google.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP