Join or sign in Register for your free TechRepublic membership or if you are already a member, sign in using your preferred method below. Use Your Email Use FacebookUse Linkedin

Vista Keyboard problems

Locked

A friend with an HP advent laptop (Vista Home Premium) told me that some keys on her keyboard weren’t working. I assumed a hardware fault and gave her a USB mini kb to try out.
Visiting yesterday I saw she had the mini kb plugged in. The laptop keys cmbxv@. were not working (neither did the shifted version) so she was typing just these keys using the mini kb. Odd thing that these were the ONLY keys that worked on the mini kb – the rest did not work.
One other item some of the keys on the laptop keyboard such as c and b seemed to do something as trying to enter a delivery address in Ebay I kept being thrown out as if these keys were typing as Alt-C or CTRL-C or some other combination.

I am baffled. I tried the accessibility options but no luck. Seems like a driver problem but very strange. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Thank you

David

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Vista Keyboard problems

Clarifications

Try turning off the Number Lock < NT >

In reply to Vista Keyboard problems

.

Tried that

In reply to Try turning off the Number Lock < NT >

If that was the answer I would have seen numbers when I typed the characters.
Anyway ‘c’ and ‘b’ are not part of the NumLock section of the keyboard.
Thanks but I feel the answer lies in the reason that faulty keys on the main keyboard worked on the alternate keyboard and vice versa.

hardware….. Software??

In reply to Vista Keyboard problems

strange issue! I would try throwing in a linux LIVE CD, boot up to the LIVE OS, and start typing. if it types fine then is a software issue… if it is still messed up its a hardware issue…

if its a software issue I would try uninstalling the keyboard and allowing plug and pray to pick it back up.

I would also download SPybot S&D… or something equal to that effect, It could be a Trojan screwing with you.

Thanks

In reply to hardware….. Software??

Thank you – I will try that.
Because it’s so strange I thought someone might recognize it.

I will also try the spyware thing, the user is not too computer savvy so may well have picked up something. I am not used to vista so I’m not sure how good Defender & Vista firewall is at blocking nasties.

Defender….

In reply to Thanks

isn’t that bad… If you dig into defender, its pretty good. But its kinda like running AVG AV or Avast AV… both AV’s are good/great but they will probably pick up different stuff…

[Author]

Replies