Posts Tagged ‘keyboard’
Switch between English and German keyboard layouts on German keyboards (Windows)
German keyboards are usually QWERTZ keyboards, named after the first line of letters up to the first that differs from the English layout, which is QWERTY.
You can switch between these two using the key combination Alt + Shift.
This switch may be the cause of your keyboard behaving strangely – for example if you pressed the combination by accident. In this case z would be replaced by y and nearly every special character would be mapped differently. Try to switch layouts if you experience that.
Windows 8 shortcuts
When you use Windows 8 on a desktop computer you better learn the most important keyboard shortcuts first, since you will have extreme long mouse-ways to cover (I will certainly not use my TV as computer screen anymore with Windows 8).
Windows-key = Switches between Metro menu and desktop if it is running
Windows-key + C = Opens the Charms menu (slim menu on the right)
Windows-key + K = Opens Devices charm
Windows-key + H = Opens Share charm
Windows-key + I = Opens Settings charm (Windows + I, up, enter, up, enter provides a rather quick way to shut down)
Windows-key + F = Opens file search
Windows-key + W = Opens settings search
Windows-key + Q = Opens the app search (nice replacement for start menu search)
Make Caps Lock Behave Like Shift (Windows)
The minority of Windows users have really ever needed Caps Lock – most of the passages written in capital letters are still done with Shift only. Because of that, most people will find the Caps Lock key rather annoying since everybody has already experienced accidently using it and finding out too late. If you are one of those who could easily abandon the Caps Lock function there is a great registry option for you (with which you can not only change the function of Caps Lock, but of every other key as well). Open the registry by entering regedit in a Run… prompt and browse the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout key. Now create a new value inside of it by right-clicking on the right-hand registry frame, selecting New > Binary Value and naming it Scancode Map. Modify it by double-clicking and enter the following (without the spaces – these will be added automatically; don’t get confused about the four-digit string on each line’s beginning):
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 2a 00 3a 00 00 00 00 00
This is what it should look like in the window:
After the changes are done, close the registry and reboot your machine. The Caps Lock key should now function like a normal Shift key.