Weird. When I was posting this thread, I was at home, using my laptop. Back in the office, put the laptop in the docking station and tried again, using the keyboard plugged into the docking station.
And this time, F9 worked and brought up the dialogue box. ?
So, is F9 on the laptop keyboard a different function than F9 on a stand-alone keyboard plugged into the computer in the docking station?
On most laptops I’m familiar with, the function keys do double duty with certain “hardware control” keys. On the HP I’m using at this moment, “F9” is “volume up” unless I use the “fn” function shift key. (In other words, the function keys actually default to not being function keys. )
Dunno about your laptop, but some variation of that arrangement seems common across many different manufacturers. I’ve seen it on Acers and Toshibas as well.
ETA: Another possibility: you had a stuck “modifier” key, so that instead of hitting “F9” you were hitting “control-F9” or something of the like. That’s a distinctly different command shortcut and would definitely open a different dialogue.