Keyboard issues in Win XP

[Mike]

I work at a small computer company. Over the last while I
have seen some annoyances in Windows XP when trying to use
certain keys on the keyboard that nothing comes up on the
screen or it comes up different. We have ran into this on
other machines than ours also.

What happens exactly is when you try to type something
with quotes, you have to hit the quotes key twice to get
any quotes on the screen & then it reacts normally as if
you had hit the quote key twice on purpose. It doesn't do
it all the time for most people that experience it, except
for one recent customer.

It does it in all sorts of programs, from IE to Wordpad,
to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The lady who is
experiencing this problem all the time is trying to learn
to type with Mavis Beacon & is getting very fustrated.
Also, when she uses quotes, and then a capital vowel, she
gets two dots over the vowel, as if she is using a foreign
keyboard/language.

I have checked the regional keyboard settings & they are
set to default keyboard & US language. I have experienced
this on our systems at work also with an expensive
Logitech keyboard & a basic keyboard that sells for $ 19.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[Malke]

I work at a small computer company. Over the last while I
have seen some annoyances in Windows XP when trying to use
certain keys on the keyboard that nothing comes up on the
screen or it comes up different. We have ran into this on
other machines than ours also.

What happens exactly is when you try to type something
with quotes, you have to hit the quotes key twice to get
any quotes on the screen & then it reacts normally as if
you had hit the quote key twice on purpose. It doesn't do
it all the time for most people that experience it, except
for one recent customer.

It does it in all sorts of programs, from IE to Wordpad,
to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The lady who is
experiencing this problem all the time is trying to learn
to type with Mavis Beacon & is getting very fustrated.
Also, when she uses quotes, and then a capital vowel, she
gets two dots over the vowel, as if she is using a foreign
keyboard/language.

I have checked the regional keyboard settings & they are
set to default keyboard & US language. I have experienced
this on our systems at work also with an expensive
Logitech keyboard & a basic keyboard that sells for $ 19.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Actually, it sounds as though you have Sticky Keys or some other
Accessibility Option in force. Look in the Accessibility applet from
Control Panel.

Malke

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I work at a small computer company. Over the last while I
have seen some annoyances in Windows XP when trying to use
certain keys on the keyboard that nothing comes up on the
screen or it comes up different. We have ran into this on
other machines than ours also.

What happens exactly is when you try to type something
with quotes, you have to hit the quotes key twice to get
any quotes on the screen & then it reacts normally as if
you had hit the quote key twice on purpose. It doesn't do
it all the time for most people that experience it, except
for one recent customer.

It does it in all sorts of programs, from IE to Wordpad,
to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The lady who is
experiencing this problem all the time is trying to learn
to type with Mavis Beacon & is getting very fustrated.
Also, when she uses quotes, and then a capital vowel, she
gets two dots over the vowel, as if she is using a foreign
keyboard/language.

I have checked the regional keyboard settings & they are
set to default keyboard & US language. I have experienced
this on our systems at work also with an expensive
Logitech keyboard & a basic keyboard that sells for $ 19.

You're using the US-International keyboard layout, which is
provided to facilitate typing special characters like ä. This can
be turned off in Control Panel | Regional and Language Options |
Languages | Details | Settings.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have checked the regional keyboard settings & they are
set to default keyboard & US language. I have experienced
this on our systems at work also with an expensive
Logitech keyboard & a basic keyboard that sells for $ 19.

Check to make sure though that you do not have it set to the US
(International) layout. That has Dead key effects - so a ' followed by
vowel gives the acute accented character; ~ and n gives ñ ' and c gives
ç

You only get the original ' if you followed with a space or one of he
other characters

 

[Guest]

Thanks very much people! The US International layout was the problem. Very grateful, myself & our customers.