Summary: Windows has an accessibility feature that's very easy to turn on by mistake that changes the behavior of your shift key and others.
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Help! My Shift key is stuck! |
Have you ever gotten so frustrated with your computer that you just start randomly pounding on the keyboard or perhaps a particular key?
Yeah, me too.
And that's likely the source of the problem here. No, Windows isn't getting even with you, though it might seem that way. It actually thinks you've asked it to do something.
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Windows XP includes what are known as "accessibility options" that are designed to make the computer more usable by people with various physical challenges. (Prior Windows versions include similar functionality but I'll focus on the XP specifics here.) Several of those options relate to the keyboard and are fairly easily enabled.
Let's say you're frustrated with your work and start pounding on the shift key (or as was my case alternately pounding on both shift keys). If Windows sees the shift key pressed five times in a row it assumes you're asking for a feature called "Sticky Keys". This feature makes the Shift, Alt, Ctrl and Windows keys toggle instead of needing to be held down. Windows does throw up a confirmation dialog, but that's easy to miss if you're still pounding your keys and happen to hit Return.
Maybe you're not that violent. Perhaps you're just lost in thought as your finger slowly descends on the Shift key. 8 seconds later Windows thinks you've asked for something called "Filter Keys" which is a way to ignore brief keystrokes or repeated keystrokes. If it's the Num Lock key you've held down for 5 seconds, Windows will ask you about something called "Toggle Keys" which beeps a tone whenever you press Caps Lock, Scroll Lock or Num Lock.
To be fair, Windows does try to ask before turning on one of these features, but if you hit Return by mistake and the feature gets turned on, it can be frustrating to try and continue to get work done if you didn't realize what happened. And that of course can lead to more keyboard pounding.
The good news is that they're easy to turn off and it's also easy to turn off the detection that got you into trouble in the first place. If your keyboard is in one of these strange states, I suggest using the mouse and selecting: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Accessibility Options. The default panel that comes up will in fact be for the keyboard options. There you can turn off whatever happened to have been turned on. While you're there for each of the three options, press Settings, and uncheck Use Shortcut. Now Windows will no longer misinterpret your random keystrokes.
Pound away.
Related:
What's Dvorak, and why did my keyboard layout suddenly change? If what you type isn't what you get, one possibility is that your keyboard is configured for the Dvorak layout. We'll look at how to check and fix it.
Will using an on screen keyboard stop keyboard loggers and hackers? Using an on screen keyboard instead of a real keyboard might stop some logging, but there's no guarantee that other techniques aren't also being used.
Article C1855 - October 28, 2003
To turn off the toggle keys (or whichever one you can turn on by accidentally holding down the right shif key too long) just press both shift keys simultaneously.
Posted by: Liza at June 16, 2009 7:35 AMhi, i just installed firefox 3.5 and it messed up my shift key. now it doesnt work at all when i want to toggle between the numbers and special characters. the only way i can get the special characters out is when i press both shift key and then shift the key character i want to get the upper chacters to show. can u advice how can i get my original keyboard setting back/ am using windows xp with sp3, logitech cordless keyboard. i swear my hardware is perfectly fine until ff 3.5 completed its installation and even after i uninstall and deleted all related folder in regedit, my keyboard problem remains.. hope u can help me. thanks1
Posted by: shana at July 16, 2009 10:38 AMI have a Dell w/ Windows XP. I cannot type numbers. It's as though the shift key is held down. It types lower case letters when the CAPS LOCK is on, and vice versa. I've tried rebooting, I've unchecked all the boxes for sticky keys and toggle keys, and even held down both shift keys (many times...once for 20 minutes!) It still doesn't work and i'm ready to throw the laptop against the wall! It's not like I can replace the keyboard on a laptop! HELP!
Posted by: Connie at July 27, 2009 9:35 AMTo all those still struggling...
Often 'Sticky Keys' is hard to disable, it says it's not on when it quite clearly is. The solution is to press any two alphabetic keys simultaneously - Hey Presto! normal service is resumed :)
Posted by: Roger Heathcote at August 28, 2009 10:59 AMThank you thank you thank you.
Posted by: Marie at September 4, 2009 7:58 AMI've tried so many things to fix this issue, but yours was finally the answer. Much better than closing everything and restarting my computer everytime this happened. I will try to be nicer to my keboard too!
i turned my computer off before reading this (im on a friends computer) and cant access my own computer because the shift key is stuck and i cannot enter my password correctly (its all numbers)!
Posted by: sophie at September 7, 2009 3:16 PMHEY WHEN I TYpE HALM OF MY LETTERES GO INto LOweRCASe AND HALF OF THEM GO INTO UPPERCASE BUT If YOU DELETE The LetTER ANd KEEP RETYPING IT IT MiGHT GO LOWER\upPER CASE PLEASE HELP
15-Sep-2009
Posted by: BEHZAD RouHANI at September 14, 2009 8:21 PM
I need help!!! I read the article but I have no answer for my problema...
I have a DELL inspiron, brand new (bought it 3 months ago) and I have a problem with my keyboard (which came up yesterday)... everytime I hit CAPS LOCK to change between lower and uppercase , I can't continue writing!! It kind of gets blocked, so I have to click in order to continue typing...
Posted by: Raine at September 23, 2009 8:27 AMHELP PLEASE!!!
i have a sony vaio laptop with windows vista in my laptop now suddenly i notice my shift key has stoped functioning. now yr suggestion of Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Accessibility Options is also not helping as i dont have accessibility options in my control panel kindly help pleaseeee..........
Posted by: pramod at October 27, 2009 8:30 AMwhen i press ctrl or shift key it's like it toggles it or something like that and its like im still pressing it when im not actually and it realy anoys me...ive tryed pressing the two shft keys but it doesnt work...please reply to my E-mail and sorry for my english its not very good
Posted by: vasko at November 12, 2009 4:31 PM