Fix It: Hitting “Enter” types a backslash on Windows XP

Posted by Michael

October 15, 2007

Update #1 - Making me look like a fool!

This is a very obscure error that I came across today with a client. He was having issues where every time he would hit ENTER, his machine would type a backslash “\” and it was proving to be very unnerving. Rebooting did not help nor unplugging his external keyboard. There was only one Google Search result that showed a thread on the issue (that I could find) and there was NO resolution.

After some digging around, I THOUGHT was able to resolve it. Below are the steps that seemed to work…but the problem CAME BACK! For historical information, here are the steps that I thought worked. The UPDATED, “low tech” approach actually fixed the issue (see below the steps).

Open your Control Panel
Find the “Regional and Language Options” item and open it:
Navigate to the “Languages” tab and click the “Details…” button:
This will launch “Text Services and Input Languages” panel. Navigate to the “Advanced” tab.
Under “System Configuration”, if the “Turn off advanced text services” box is unchecked, recheck it (if it is already checked, I’m not sure what is going on in your case:
Click “OK” to close “Text Services and Input Languages” and then click “OK” to close “Regional Language Options”.
Test it out again and see if hitting Enter now does NOT show the backslash

Let me know if this works for you!

Update - so the process didn’t work! But we did find out what works. It’s pretty difficult so brace yourself:

Unplug your keyboard.
Turn it upside down.
Knock it against the table
Count all of the crumbs and crap that come tumbling out.
Put the keyboard in front of your mouth.
BLOW like crazy to get more crap out of it.
Put all of the crumbs into an envelop, write a letter to your keyboard manufacturer telling them to design a crumb-less keyboard and mail it off.
Plug the keyboard back in.
Test it out.

Did these new updated steps work?

HTD says: Oh those pesky hidden Window’s configurations….grrrrr! STOP EATING OVER YOUR KEYBOARD!

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