My wife’s computer is running Windows XP, and it opens with JAWS for Windows running upon startup (screen-reading software for the blind). Last weekend a friend came over and loaded an upgrade to her Office Suite from 2000 to 2003.
The upgrade didn’t take, so I unloaded it, and went back to Office Professional 2000. Before I unloaded it, my wife and her friend were working with other, non-Office-related applications and tasks. They began to notice, however, that exiting a given application is becoming problematic.
Normally, of course, the shortcut Alt + F4 closes whatever open window is active. Not doing that any more. Now, Alt + F4 opens the screen for “My Computer” from the desktop.
Does anyone have any insights as to what might cause this type of behavior, and how I might make it stop doing that?
This is going to be a long shot but might help. I’m guessing that the My Computer icon on the desktop is actually a shortcut to My Computer, as indicated by a small black arrow in a white square in the lower left corner of the icon. If so, right-click on the icon and pick Properties. See if you see a Shortcut Key property, and if so does it say Alt-F4 in the blank? If so, click in the Shortcut Key and hit the Backspace key on your keyboard, then click Ok at the bottom to close the Properties window.
Well, yes, the My Computer icon is a shortcut to that, but checking for the properties opens up a System Properties box that doesn’t have a Shortcut tab.
If you have a Windows desktop of your own, right-click the icon, and check Properties, and you’ll see what I mean.
If you click the start menu and move the mouse over the My Computer icon there, then right click, you will see an option to de-select “Show on Desktop”. Not sure if that will help the Alt-F4 thing, however.
Actaully, what control-z (obligatory t-shirt link) was saying is that instead of the real “My Computer” icon with special properties that you have, it would be possible to have a simple shortcut instead that has a hot key of Alt-F4. But clearly, not what the problem is. (Although there could be another shortcut with a different name, or hiding off the screen, that does open the My Computer window.)
What is the keyboard driver being used? If you go the Keyboard Control Panel, the Hardware tab should say something along the lines of 101/102 Key Generic Keyboard, instead of something fancier sounding. Then look at the other tabs in there. Is there a key-mapping tab?
Did the friend install anything else? Any other accessibility software? Is any Windows accessibility software newly active? Is there any manufacturer’s software running?
Is the problem with the Alt key or the F4 key? Can you Alt-Tab between windows? If you open one program window that can have mulitple documents in it (like older Word and Excel, Textpad, Opera, etc), does Ctrl-F4 close them? Are any Ctrl or Shift keys always active? Scroll-Lock?
From the start menu do a search for ‘all files and folders’
Type in My Computer for the search parameters. Click on each icon that comes up, right click and select properties and then follow control-z’s instructions.
No F-lock key, but the driver says it’s 101/102 key keyboard Microsoft, rather than Generic, and there’s something about PS/2.
Searching for “My Computer” under All Files and Folders hasn’t yielded anything.
I haven’t yet checked into rotoring through the active windows with Alt + Tab, or any of the other troubleshooting tips involving the F4 key. I had to shut off Microsoft Narrator, because it was inadvertently turned on, and was interfering pretty badly with JAWS.
As to other software that was installed, there was Kurzweil Reader, and an antivirus application called T-Net.