Very strange problem at a Sunshine Coast Business IT client where quotes “ and apostrophes ‘ would not display until the client pressed another key. Then this key and the quote or apostrophe would appear on the screen.

I did some further testing and the tilde ~ and the hat (is that what it is called?) ^ also didn’t appear when pressed until another key was pressed. The problem continues to appear even if another keyboard  is installed. So the setting had to be inside the Windows 7 Settings.

Checking in the keyboard settings it was apparent that the system was set to United States-International for it’s keyboard layout.  In Australia we use standard US keyboards so I changed it back to US and removed the United States-International keyboard just for good measure.

After pressing OK, I tested it on a Word Document and the issue still remained. However after a reboot the system went back to normal and the client could use apostrophes and quotation marks mand get on with their job. I’m not sure why the system had changed to International keyboard layout- whether windows did it or the user did inadvertently I cannot be sure. It is an easy solution though thankfully.

Authored by Ian

Ian Johnson is a Director of OJ Networks. He has been working in IT since 1995. Mentored by the best, Ian started as Technical Support Officer for an innovative dialup ISP in Brisbane “Hub Communications”. He progressed to become a Web Design and Programmer in ASP, ASP.NET and PHP during his time at “The Lab Development Group” with David Vandenberg amonst others. Ian has been working as a Consultant on the Sunshine Coast since 2001 and became a Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP) Server Administrator in 2010 after which he formed OJ Networks. He has assisted numerous small businesses to reach their potential through IT Infrastructure Planning and Implementation and Web design, Development and Web Marketing. You can connect with Ian on Linked In.