# Testing: IE7 vs. Firefox 2 on Vista - typing woes **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 20, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890 "2006-12-20T05:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/1 "2006-12-20T05:14:33Z")
I upgraded mylaptop to Windows Vista the othr week, and I’ve noticed onethin that has been very annoyng: it seems that when I post messages t the Dope, I keep “dropping” letters. It’s as if I’m not hitting te keys hard enoug to regiter. Now I’m not th world’s greatest tyist, but I know I’m not this bad! I have the machine t to dual-boot with Winds XP, so I went back to XP and tried typing abit, and everything worked fine. So I know it’s notte laptop itself. Just tody, I installed Firefox on my Vista installation, andI think that I’m not hving the same proble there. So I’m posting here t check. Just for the record, tis post was typed in Internet Explorer 7. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/2 "2006-12-20T05:20:06Z")
This post is being typed in Firefox 2.0. I can already tell that I’m not having the same problem; all of the letters that I intend to type are actually appearing on the screen. (Except, of course, that I don’t always hit the right keys. As I mentioned before, I’m not that great a typist. But at least \*\*something \*\*is showing up!) So, apparently this is an IE7 problem: not a hardware issue, and not a Vista problem. That having been resolved, has anyone else experienced a similar issue? I imagine there may be some settings in IE related to keystroke timing; I’ll have to look it up. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/3 "2006-12-20T12:59:41Z")
I doubt that it’s an IE7 problem. I’ve been using it for months in XP without a problem like the one you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/4 "2006-12-20T13:35:20Z")
Not us, not us. (Nothing here has changed.) Something between your machine and Vista, sounds like. Sorry for your troubles. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/5 "2006-12-20T14:12:10Z")
Couold it be a resources issue? How close are you to the minimum spec for running Vista? ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/6 "2006-12-20T15:00:32Z")
I doubt that it’s a resource issue. The machine is a Dell Latitude D620 laptop, with a 1.8 GHz dual-core CPU and 1 GB of RAM. My “Windows Experience Index” is a 2.3, based on the fact that I am using an on-board graphics chip, but the non-graphics scores are 4.5 and above (I assume that’s on a 5 point scale?). Other than this specific problem, everything is working fine, and performance in general under Vista is better than it was under XP on this machine. And as I mentioned, the problem only crops up when typing using IE7. Everything is fine in Firefox; everything is fine in Notepad, or Word. Only IE is causing headaches. I will give it on one of the Vista test machines we have at work and see if that makes a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/7 "2006-12-20T15:35:02Z")
Did you check to make sure you’re up to date on all Windows Update patches? I know I had to download a patch or two after getting IE7. Maybe they already offer a fix for it. ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/8 "2006-12-20T15:48:04Z")
I’ve been having problems whenever I do things like backspace and Ctrl-z to undo or Ctrl-y to restore ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/9 "2006-12-20T23:59:52Z")
Patches are all up to date, according to Vista. (I don’t like the new Windows Update in Vista, it’s been “dumbed down”). I am typing this post from a different machine in the office and so far I don’t seem to be having the same problem. It looks like it is a combination of IE7/Vista and my hardware. Oh well… ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/10 "2006-12-21T00:04:14Z")
One more test: This post is coming from my laptop, but using a regular keyboard while the laptop is docked, rather than the laptop keyboard. I am having no problems whatsoever, so it seems to be an issues with the keyboard that is built into the laptop. Still, the problem only surfaces when I am typing in Internet Explorer. All other applications are fine. Come to think of it, it may be limited strictly to the SDMB. I don’t post to other message boards very often, and I’m not sure that I have done so since I installed Vista. So it may be that it’s the Dope’s problem after all! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/testing-ie7-vs-firefox-2-on-vista-typing-woes/384890/11 "2006-12-22T16:45:39Z")
Test. Pardon the hijack. I had technical difficulties.