Ctrl-End

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(I’m Win98/SE, but I suspect my question applies to all versions of Windows.)

Is there a (simple) way of making the right-hand key take the place of the left-hand key?

I make much use of the Ctrl key (Ctrl-right-arrow, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-Home etc), and have just noticed that the left-hand Ctrl key differs from the right-hand Ctrl key.

I’ve just tried Ctrl-End in MSWord97/SR2 and Excel97/SR2; using the left-hand Ctrl key takes me to the foot of the document, but Ctrl-End with the right hand Ctrl key does not (it appears to be inoperative).

This is not an urgent need. After all, ten years and I’ve JUST discovered that I should continue to hold my mug of coffee in my right hand.

Still and all, I suspect I ought to know a bit more about generic Windows keyboard mapping.

Specific macros in Word, Excel etc. won’t be all that useful, since when I teach, I like to stress the common application of these keystrokes, and having to write macros for each Windows application is defeated from the start.

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I guess the first thing I would try would be a replacement KB ’cause I think yours is either busted or “something” has accidently re-mapped one or more keys. I just tried Word and Excel (2000) and both control-end (left and right) combos take me to the end of the document. Same for control-home. Boy, it’s been years since I even thought about re-mapping stuff on the keyboard. We better check some of the Windows controls and see if re-applying the instruction to use “English” keyboard or something like that will set it back to default condition. I’m sure there’s software out there too.

(What’d ya do ta da pix?)

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> I would try would be a replacement KB

Thanks, Al. I’ll give that a shot next time I re-boot (hard boot) the machine later today.

My pix is Perth, W.A., viewed from a satellite late at night. You can justy make out Bunbury at the lower LH corner.

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Sounds like a dud keyboard, as Al says. Have you tried the “flip, shake & tap” cure? If you have your caffeine fix at the keyboard, and it’s accompanied by the odd bikkie, or similar, it’s possible that a few crumbs may have snuck in around your Ctrl key. Flipping the keyboard over, and taking it thru some aerobics, could help. A hit with the vacuum may help too.

btw [indent]

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My pix is Perth, W.A., viewed from a satellite late at night. You can justy make out Bunbury at the lower LH corner.

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[/indent] solved a dark mystery – if you squint just right, you can see me in Woodlands

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>Have you tried the “flip, shake & tap” cure?

You are spot on with the bikkie crumbs, but no, it appears to be something else within my system (see previous responses) . Over the next few days I’m going to experiment with Safe Boots etc. I suspect that I have something being loaded at startup that is grabbing the key when it didn’t oughta.

> you can see me (hello) in Woodlands

Woodlands I should know. Where is it? I have the 15 MetroMaps (1 through 15) covering Yanchep to Keysbrook. I’ve been studying them to see how the place has grown.

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Looks like you’ve got quite the saga goin’ on there my friend. We’ll just have to sit back and watch while you diagnose where the problem might be, because I agree with you – if it works one minute, it should work the next. The only thing you said in those last posts that I wonder about is: “…I switched keyboards without rebooting, and switched back…” I would have thought your machine would go beserk if you did that, but who knows – The Shadow Do!

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> I would have thought your machine would go beserk if you did that,

Yes. I too was waiting for the howls of protest, but it was early morning, and I’d just had the first cup of coffee (ultra strong because I can’t be bothered waiting for the full load to drip through!)

When I decided to rebuild and switch to 32-bit FAT I cleaned up a lot of my act. I realised early on that they weren’t joking about “some DOS applications” not working properly. I had GPFs about four times an hour. I ran SafeBoot for half a day, with no problems, then yanked the CED/Stackey/Setkey utilities right out of the boot sequence and have been having fun ever since. It’s hard for me to believe that I have any non-standard utilities in there, but I’ll have to run a stripped-down test later tonight.

Thanks for all the input/prodding/nudging etc.

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I hereby nominate myself for “klutz of the month”. No other nominations being accepted …..

Sit down before you read any further; stuff a (clean) sock in your mouth.

After several re-boots, interspersed with MSConfig runs (disable Startup, disable Config.sys etc) I finally looked at my keyboard. There is one Window key to the LH end of the spacebar, but TWO Windows-like keys to the right of the spacebar.

I decided out of curiousity to see what they do/did.

One key has a mouse-pointer arrow on a document. It seems to be as effective as right-clicking at the insertion point.

The other key is identical (in appearance) to the LH Windows key – a MS banner waving in the breeze – BUT it operates just like a Ctrl key.

Duh!

I *do* eat at two places in my home (1) over the sink and (2) over the keyboard.

My guess is that sometime in the past I’ve removed the keys, cleaned the board, and replaced the keys incorrectly.

As we speak my newly-sited RH Ctrl key is doing what I expect it to do.

From left to right my keys now are;

Ctrl
Windows
Alt
Spacebar
Alt
Windows
MousePointer
Ctrl
(then on to the cursor set, numeric pad)

I still don’t know why the language change had a temporary effect.

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>> I still don’t know why the language change had a temporary effect.

You had probably simply typed your keyboard into submission by that point.

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Don’t feel too bad. I once had a friend who asked why suddenly the right channel audio in his headset, was coming out the the left side and vice versa. When I told him to just reverse the way it sat on his head, he had a look of utter amazement on his face and couldn’t say another word for days !

Bob

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Glad your dramas are over . Reminds me of a serious problem my boss had with his monitor, back in the monochrome days. All he could see were a few little boxes on the screen. The cause? He forgot that he’d turned down contrast & brightness to save power!

Woodlands is small, about 2/3 way to the beach from the CBD, just south of Scarborough Beach Rd. If your maps show Jackadder Lake, I’m on a little hill north of it. The suburbs around us are Doubleview (west), Churchlands (south), Osborne Park (east), and Innaloo (north, and no – that’s not a typo).

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> Glad your dramas are over

Sort of. I’m still puzzled as to why changing the Keyboard Language should have made the (then) RH Ctrl key (now) RH Windows key start to act as a Ctrl key should.

> Woodlands is small,

Got it. map 7. Downtown Core, practically (grin!). Herdsman Lake appears to be almost disappeared now. I used to buy veggies from a market garden on the NW corner of the Herdsman, on my way back from a supermarket in Floreat.

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Leif’s probably right – you typed the keyboard into submission

I prefer to think of it as great compromise between the city and the beach.

FYI – Herdsman Lake has been cleaned up a lot, along with the linked Jackadder Lake and Lake Monger, and is now a wildlife sanctuary, it’s worth a Google (as a phrase) if you’re curious. There’ still a bit of that market garden left, but no more direct sales.

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>try would be a replacement KB

Easy for you to say. Mine was in the bottom of the closet and the darn keys had fallen out.

My old keyboard (without the Windows key near the lower LH corner) worked fine. the Right-hand Ctrl key augmented the arrow key.

I switched keyboards without rebooting, and switched back. The earlier KB still failed to Ctrl-arrow from the right hand side.

Initially, therefore, it looks as if the keyboard is faulty, but read on, dear reader, read on ……

P.S>((What’d ya do ta da pix?)) here’s the link http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html, Click on the link “various cities”

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Just to make sure, I just tried the key combos on another Win98SE machine that does still have Office 97 installed. Same result – works OK here. Don’t know what you have “set” for your KB in the Control Panel app, Chris, but suppose you were to “toggle” it from (whatever) Canadian Standard to US English and then back. Wonder if the keys would “find” their settings again?

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> “toggle” it from (whatever) Canadian Standard to US English and then back.

Gosh Darn!

That worked. Temporarily.

I’d previously switched to an alternate KB and then back to my original problem. The problem persisted.

I toggled languages (“please insert the CD marked “Windows 98″ ….”) from US English to English Canadian and the key worked (in this reply in Mozilla). Toggled it back to US English and the key worked.

Loaded MSWord and the key DIDN’T work. Without unloading Word, toggled the language back and forth, back in Word, the key worked!

There’s something funny going on in my system.

If I change the language and the key works, I’d expect it to continue to work, without having to re-enter the Control Panel each time I load the application.

Rebooting doesn’t seem to make it “stick”, either.

I removed my DOS TSR programs (CED, Stackey, SetKey etc.) when I switched to 32-bit FAT a couple of weeks ago, so I don’t believe that there’s any old-fashioned hijacking of the keyboard going on.

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