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Old July 7th 18, 11:06 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Tim Slattery[_2_]
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Posts: 223
Default MS Ergonomic keyboard problem

Paul wrote:

Tim Slattery wrote:
We just bought a Microsoft "Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop" for my wife's
Dell tower running Windows 8.1. It consists of an ergonomic keyboard,
a mouse, and a separate number pad.

So we brought home plugged the USB nub into a USB port, removed the
little tabs keeping the batteries fresh, turned on the mouse and...

The mouse works fine. The keyboard and number pad don't. Oddly, the
keyboard wordks for typing in the password when she logs in to her
account. But once her desktop appears...nothing. No response from
keyboard or number pad.

One execption: there's a little key on both the keyboard and the
number pad that brings up a a calculator window. That works on both
the keyboard and number pad. Nothing else works. WTF??

We took it back to Best Buy, the Geek Squad guy plugged the USB nub
into his laptop and -- everything works. He says to leave the nub
plugged into the computer for a while, sometimes these gizmos will
download a driver from the Internet. I'm not so sure, but that's what
I'm doing at the moment.

Any ideas?


Your symptom set doesn't suggest a hardware issue,
because your "calc button" tests has proved out a lot
of hardware paths and RF interference test cases.

It's possible for a running USB3 cable, to wipe out
Bluetooth communications at 2.4GHz, if the two items
are close enough together. But your description
doesn't sound like RF.

That leaves the question, of what possible installed
keyboard/mouse software, or localization setting
in Personalize, could be doing this ? Not a clue.

This software probably had a different name at some
point, but I forget what that is. Intellipoint ?
Check your Programs and Features control panel,
to see if something like that is installed.

https://www.microsoft.com/accessorie...eyboard-center

Customization software is required for mice which
have more than three buttons. Customization software
is required for keyboards with the "email" or
"Internet" rubber buttons on the upper right.
The regular keyboard matrix... shouldn't need anything.
Even if the localization was wrong, a keyup or
keydown event should still have a visible
(if wrong) effect.

You could use a software that records/displays
keyup and keydown events, and see if at least
that much is working. There could be USB packets
from the nano receiver.

You can also try a Linux LiveCD and do a quick
keyboard test, just for comparison. That will
again just verify that the keyboard is functional
on the same computer. Leaving the OS as the culprit.

Paul


--
Tim Slattery
tim at risingdove dot com
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