Strange Characters

Have you ever been typing away and all of a sudden the characters no longer are showing up on the screen that you typed on the keyboard.

This has been an issue with all my computer for many years. I had keyboard issues with Windows XP, Window Vista and Window 7 both 32 bit and 64 bit. I would be typing or coding and all of a sudden a Double Quote " would become something else `` or [ would be come ^ and other strange goings on. I used to close what ever application I was using and then reopen it again to fix the problem.

I discovered the source of the problem so now I can share the easy fix with you. It turns out that what is going on is the the Language Settings have somehow change the keyboard layout on you. See

Figure 1

The way to fix this is to go down to your taskbar and switch your language back to your default language. See

Figure 2

If you can not find the lanugae icon

in your System Tray then take a look in the control panel under "Region and Language" Switch to the "Keyboard and Languages" tab (

Figure 3

)

Now click on the "Change keyboards..." see

Figure 4

. Drop donw the list and choose your default Keyboard

Figure 5

If you want to see the Language Bar Icon in your system tray then switch to the "Language Bar" tab of the "Text Services and Input Languages" window and choose the "Docked on the Taskbar option. See

Figure 6

Figure 1