Windows 10 keeps changing my keyboard layout

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The thread on “Windows keeps changing my Default Programs” prompts me to post this other odd behaviour by Windows 10.

I run two laptops, one a Dell Latitude D6420, bought in 2012, upgraded to Win 10 Pro-64 from Windows 7 Pro-64, the other a more recent MS Surface Pro 3 upgraded to Win 10 Pro-64 from Win 8.1. The Surface has a Type Cover keyboard with UK keyboard layout. Both computers are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, and they have access to the same OneDrive account, so that I may use either machine to view or edit my documents.

The Dell has a US keyboard layout, and my preferred Region settings are these: Display language and Format set to United Kingdom, Location is United Kingdom. With the US keyboard layout, I set the input language as United Kingdom – United States International. Don’t ask, I have a good reason for liking the US International layout. It works far better than the UK layout for French and German accented characters – so I’m not open for suggestions of a new keyboard or new keyboard layout! Any external keyboard attached to the Dell when docked is US layout. Obviously, the Surface is set for UK layouts throughout.

Since upgrading to Windows 10, or perhaps one of the major upgrades of Win 10, I find that either the Dell switches over to the UK keyboard – suddenly Shift-2 is double-quotes instead of “@”, and the “@”has moved to the double quotes key – or else that the Surface has changed over to US International. This happens periodically, I can not see any pattern to it, nor any consistent behaviour on my part that has prompted the change.

It’s no worse than an irritant (easily fixed through Control Panel), and I normally only notice it when I try to enter an “@” character, and find that I have typed double quotes instead. An irritant, but it shouldn’t happen.

Any thoughts on what causes this or how I could avoid this?

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Maybe it’s caused by syncing settings as one of the options is to sync language preferences.

Type ‘sync’ into the search box and click ‘Sync your settings’ when it appears to see the options.

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Browni – thanks, that looks like a Windows 10 specific setting, and it says that it would apply to all devices using the eMail address that is my OneDrive identity, which is what seemed to be happening with me.

I’ve turned the sync “Language Preferences” off, and left the others alone. Let’s see what happens now.

Again, thanks!

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Windows key + Space Bar switches keyboard input language, and it seems people find it easy to hit that combination inadvertently.

I don’t believe it’s easy to disable just that key combination, although you can disable all Windows+anything combinations (and still have Windows key alone get the start menu).

But if you don’t intend to change keyboard layouts, I think you should remove unused layouts; at Settings, Time & language, Region and language, Languages, select, Remove.

For your mixed UK/US use you may need to select the language, then Options and Remove unused keyboard layouts.

If languages or layouts aren’t listed there, then they can’t be switched to by an accidental key press.

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Bruce – thanks.

Yes, I do remove unwanted layouts, and have kept on doing so when I found that I had been switched unexpectedly, and wished to get back to where I wanted to be.

When set as I wish it to be, each of the two machines that I described had a single layout and language, precisely so that I could not switch accidentally by Win key + spacebar.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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