Keyboard funny - on two keyboards.

On my old XP machine, I had a _weird_ keyboard fault - it would
sometimes enter a mode for which the nearest description I can give was
as if some keys were stuck, such as the control key. The thing is, once
the machine (netbook) had entered this funny mode, it applied whether I
used its own keyboard, an external USB keyboard, or even the on-screen
"keyboard". (This last made me think it wasn't a hardware fault! That
plus the fact that it behaved differently in different prog.s; it was
usually less evident in Notepad+ than in my email/news client - I even
sometimes resorted to entering some text in NPP and cutting and pasting
it into emails/posts.) A reboot always cured it; sometimes, however, it
went away after a while. I'd more or less given up hoping for a
solution, and just lived with it. BUT:

A few days ago, even though I didn't think it _was_ a hardware fault, I
bashed it in frustration rather harder than usual. Subsequently, the
machine started shutting down after a few minutes: I think I partially
broke the heatsink compound seal from the CPU.

So I thought, this is telling me to get on with what I'd been putting
off for over a year, and transfer myself to this Windows 7-32 machine
I'd been keeping for just such an eventuality. (-32 because my old
news/mail client won't run under any -64 variant [it operates as a shell
extension]. The "new" machine is quite a bit superior anyway: the XP
machine was single core, 1.3 GHz, 2G RAM; this one is four core [well,
two, but virtualized, so Task Manager shows four graphs], 2.5 GHz, 3G.)

Anyway, sorry for the rambling! The 7 machine seems to have keyboard
funnies too.

Yesterday, it sometimes appeared to have a ctrl key stuck - but firing
up the on-screen keyboard brought it up with the Ctrl keys whited, and
clicking them on that cleared it. (I had to find an o, an s, and a k in
text, to cut and paste into the run box, since I couldn't type osk as it
thought I was typing Ctrl-o etc.! [Yes, I've since found it is available
via the accessibility menu, but I've got it in the Run memory now.])

This evening, I'm finding difficulty entering the characters "A" and
")".

If I press the "A" key, I get "a". If I do so while holding down either
shift key, iconoid's window opens. (This is _not_ a funny of iconoid
[which I use mainly to store/recall desktop icon positions if they get
scrambled] - that was fine yesterday. And Ctrl-A doesn't normally open
it, anyway.) If I turn on Caps Lock and press the A key, I get "A".
(That's how I'm typing this!) I can cut/paste an "A" fine.

If I press the 0 (zero) key, I get a 0. If I press it while holding down
either shift key, nothing happens. [")" is shifted 0 on the UK keyboard
layout.] I can paste a ")" OK (that's how I'm typing this!).

If I press the ESC key, the start menu appears, just as if I'd pressed
the Windows key. (I know Ctrl-Esc is the same as Win, so that's like
Ctrl is stuck. But it isn't - Ctrl-a selects all, but a doesn't; Ctrl-v
pastes, but v on its own doesn't.)

I can't say how it behaves with the on-screen "keyboard", as when I try
to run that - either from the Run memory from yesterday, or via the
menus - I get a little beep, and it doesn't appear.

The above four paragraphs are true whether using the internal keyboard
or an external (USB) one. Except - now, it's suddenly got better!
A)A)A)A)A)A)Aargh! And the OSK now comes up fine! And Esc behaves as it
should!

(What is it going to do tomorrow, or later tonight! Will the same
symptom[s] come back, or something else? Or will it be fine for weeks or
months?)


I had thought this sort of keyboard weirdness was just a peculiarity of
my old XP netbook (Samsung NC-20), perhaps due to my having corrupted
some critical file (unfortunately before I started doing Macrium
backups). But I'm now on a completely different machine, with a
different Windows! Yes, I've installed some of the same software, but by
installing, not copying over folders - and these softwares _used_ to not
exhibit such funnies, anyway.

So I think it's _me_: I must have developed some weird radiation that
affects keyboards ... well, obviously I don't _really_ think that, but I
will admit to considerable puzzlement that similar (though not
identical) keyboard funnies are showing themselves on two entirely
different machines: similar in that they show up with the built-in
keyboard and the USB one, anyway.

Suggestions? (Other than "go to linux", "give up computing", and
similarly helpful ones.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

After all is said and done, usually more is said.

On 02/06/2018 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:



snip

The above four paragraphs are true whether using the internal keyboard
or an external (USB) one. Except - now, it's suddenly got better!
A)A)A)A)A)A)Aargh! And the OSK now comes up fine! And Esc behaves as it
should!

(What is it going to do tomorrow, or later tonight! Will the same
symptom[s] come back, or something else? Or will it be fine for weeks or
months?)


I had thought this sort of keyboard weirdness was just a peculiarity of
my old XP netbook (Samsung NC-20), perhaps due to my having corrupted
some critical file (unfortunately before I started doing Macrium
backups). But I'm now on a completely different machine, with a
different Windows! Yes, I've installed some of the same software, but by
installing, not copying over folders - and these softwares _used_ to not
exhibit such funnies, anyway.

So I think it's _me_: I must have developed some weird radiation that
affects keyboards ... well, obviously I don't _really_ think that, but I
will admit to considerable puzzlement that similar (though not
identical) keyboard funnies are showing themselves on two entirely
different machines: similar in that they show up with the built-in
keyboard and the USB one, anyway.

Suggestions? (Other than "go to linux", "give up computing", and
similarly helpful ones.)




If I read this right, all was working ok until you installed some
software that had been on your old machine?

In message , philo
writes:
On 02/06/2018 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:



snip
The above four paragraphs are true whether using the internal
keyboard or an external (USB) one. Except - now, it's suddenly got
better! A)A)A)A)A)A)Aargh! And the OSK now comes up fine! And Esc
behaves as it should!
(What is it going to do tomorrow, or later tonight! Will the same
symptom[s] come back, or something else? Or will it be fine for weeks
or months?)
I had thought this sort of keyboard weirdness was just a
peculiarity of my old XP netbook (Samsung NC-20), perhaps due to my
having corrupted some critical file (unfortunately before I started
doing Macrium backups). But I'm now on a completely different
machine, with a different Windows! Yes, I've installed some of the
same software, but by installing, not copying over folders - and
these softwares _used_ to not exhibit such funnies, anyway.
So I think it's _me_: I must have developed some weird radiation
that affects keyboards ... well, obviously I don't _really_ think
that, but I will admit to considerable puzzlement that similar
(though not identical) keyboard funnies are showing themselves on two
entirely different machines: similar in that they show up with the
built-in keyboard and the USB one, anyway.
Suggestions? (Other than "go to linux", "give up computing", and
similarly helpful ones.)




If I read this right, all was working ok until you installed some
software that had been on your old machine?


I can see where you're coming from, but:

(a) All seems well now, and does after machine start. (I can't say all
was definitely well before I installed that software - I didn't really
use this machine other than trivially to make sure it worked when I got
it.) If it's going to be broadly similar to how it was on the old
machine, the funny behaviour will come and go, either at random or
triggered by something I do that I haven't yet identified (and I've
spent considerable time trying!).

(b) On the old machine, this behaviour only appeared a few years ago:
all the software I use all the time had been behaving fine until then.
The only new software I'd installed on the old machine _around_ the time
the funnies started was AllChars - which seemed a good candidate for
being the culprit, but (i) I completely uninstalled it and the odd
behaviour didn't stop, (ii) AllChars itself seems to work fine (and
identically) whether the machines are in "funny mode" or not.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... referendum coverage is available with subtitles for the deaf, audio
description for the blind, and ITV for the thick. - Dead Ringers, 2016-6-25

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

I can see where you're coming from, but:

(a) All seems well now, and does after machine start. (I can't say all
was definitely well before I installed that software - I didn't really
use this machine other than trivially to make sure it worked when I got
it.) If it's going to be broadly similar to how it was on the old
machine, the funny behaviour will come and go, either at random or
triggered by something I do that I haven't yet identified (and I've
spent considerable time trying!).

(b) On the old machine, this behaviour only appeared a few years ago:
all the software I use all the time had been behaving fine until then.
The only new software I'd installed on the old machine _around_ the time
the funnies started was AllChars - which seemed a good candidate for
being the culprit, but (i) I completely uninstalled it and the odd
behaviour didn't stop, (ii) AllChars itself seems to work fine (and
identically) whether the machines are in "funny mode" or not.

Install a clean Win7 OS on the new machine, none of the old
software, and test with your penchant for hitting some hot-key
by accident. Chances are all the keyboards will work just fine.
Try installing your USENET client, typing postings and so on,
and I bet it will be fine.

Then, when you install some of that older cruft, hell will
break loose again... and you'll know for sure.

It's possible that your older software is playing with
a keyboard mapping. But I don't know how keyboard mapping
works, what piece of the system keeps that info, and I
can't offer any advice on how you catch it doing that.
Since a keyboard mapping could be a system function,
it might not have any outer symptoms. Can't trace it in
ProcMon for example.

In Process Explorer, you can check for things that have
a handle to particular items, but again, I don't know if
that's the level your problem is showing up. Most likely,
it's not visible there either (like say iconoid
having the equivalent of /dev/keyboard open). Maybe
Googling "keyboard logger" may uncover how loggers
do it, and give some hint what analytical tools can
be used or something.

Paul

On Tue, 06 Feb 2018 19:15:01 -0500, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

I can see where you're coming from, but:


It's possible that your older software is playing with
a keyboard mapping. But I don't know how keyboard mapping
works, what piece of the system keeps that info, and I
can't offer any advice on how you catch it doing that.
Since a keyboard mapping could be a system function,
it might not have any outer symptoms. Can't trace it in
ProcMon for example.

Mark Russinovich has an interesting keyboard filter program he
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/ctrl2cap

He also talks a little about how it works at that link, but it's a 5000
foot view. Better than a 40,000 foot view, but perhaps not enough detail
to help in this case.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 06 Feb 2018 19:15:01 -0500, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

I can see where you're coming from, but:

It's possible that your older software is playing with
a keyboard mapping. But I don't know how keyboard mapping
works, what piece of the system keeps that info, and I
can't offer any advice on how you catch it doing that.
Since a keyboard mapping could be a system function,
it might not have any outer symptoms. Can't trace it in
ProcMon for example.

Mark Russinovich has an interesting keyboard filter program he
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/ctrl2cap

He also talks a little about how it works at that link, but it's a 5000
foot view. Better than a 40,000 foot view, but perhaps not enough detail
to help in this case.


The registry area he's talking about is demonstrated here.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...98b3628?auth=1

And that was discovered in reference to the CDROM issue where
an errant UpperFilter installed by Daemon Tools or similar, would
bork the CDROM. The only problem was, some users got too ambitious
and ripped out every UpperFilter they could find, including
something related to keyboard. And that's the kind of item
shown in the Answers pictures above. There's a specific GUID
that corresponds to keyboard, just as there is a specific GUID
for the CD or DVD drive. Not all of those GUIDs need to be toyed with.

So somewhere around such a key, you could check for UpperFilters
or LowerFilters.

You could also do it the easy way, and look in Device Manager.
And see if there is anything suspicious.

https://s9.postimg.org/yxl4q7vof/upp...owerfilter.gif

I'm just worried about "more evil" ways to do it. Ones
that don't leave nice traces.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Install a clean Win7 OS on the new machine, none of the old

I know that's the usual solution here, but I don't have stacks of W7 OSs
(I have none), and just the thought of doing it - especially as I _know_
you're going to say I don't need one, I can try one for 30 days or
something - gives me the heeby-jeebies.

software, and test with your penchant for hitting some hot-key
by accident. Chances are all the keyboards will work just fine.
Try installing your USENET client, typing postings and so on,
and I bet it will be fine.

It probably would.

Then, when you install some of that older cruft, hell will
break loose again... and you'll know for sure.

The "older cruft" was working fine - for years - on the old XP system,
before this problem showed up. (Incidentally, I've now been working for
many hours, and it hasn't come back.)

It's possible that your older software is playing with
a keyboard mapping. But I don't know how keyboard mapping
works, what piece of the system keeps that info, and I
can't offer any advice on how you catch it doing that.
Since a keyboard mapping could be a system function,
it might not have any outer symptoms. Can't trace it in
ProcMon for example.

The _only_ _new_ software I'd installed around the time when the strange
behaviour started - which was some years ago - was AllChars; I
thoroughly removed that (it's not that complicated a piece of software),
and the fault didn't disappear. As far as I could tell: the funny
sometimes didn't appear for days. (Especially if I didn't touch the left
Ctrl key; that seemed to trigger it - though only sometimes.)
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

offensive speech is something to be protected, not celebrated.
- "yoni", 2015-8-5