# Problem with cyrillic keyboard

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 13, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826 "2005-11-13T05:07:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826/1 "2005-11-13T05:07:36Z")

</div>

Here’s my problem… For some reason, I can’t write in Cyrillic anymore (I recently formated my hard drive).

I’m using W98. In order to enable cyrillic charachters, I go in the Panel, pick “keyboard” then “language” and finally “russian”. I get the little icon in the task bar, allowing me to choose between Fr (french) or Ru (Russian), but when I select “Russian”, either I hear a little “ding” and nothing happens, or the thingie actually switch to “Ru” but I still type roman characters.

Does anybody know what I’m doing wrong (I suspect I’m doing something wrong).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826/2 "2005-11-13T06:03:49Z")

</div>

I just noticed that in keyboard/language/properties, I get various choices of keyboard layouts, and the default seems to be “United States 101” (and indeed, when I switch to “Ru”, I type roman characters, but with an american keyboard layout (the french keyboard is organized differently). But though I’ve a long list of layouts (swedish, several french, several spanish, etc…), there’s no “Russian” choice.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826/3 "2005-11-13T06:15:21Z")

</div>

Just to note, after rereading the answers to the similar question I asked last year, that the keyboard map is installed, since I can read cyrillic characters.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-cyrillic-keyboard/330826/4 "2005-11-13T06:44:23Z")

</div>

Ыщккн…err…actually, nothing. I was about to ask another question but it seems that it now works, though it didn’t 5 seconds ago.  
Sorry to have disturbed the hamsters for an issue I could solve by myself.