Solved Unwanted Hotkeys Appearing

Hi,

About 3 weeks ago our computer picked up a virus. We couldn't get rid of it so the computer was wiped & Vista re-installed. It's been working well until today.

All of a sudden what I believe to be hotkeys are appearing for no reason (e.g. you type "e" and the Computer dialog box opens. You can't type the letter "e" at all. As a matter of fact I'm typing this on a different computer as I can't use that one). I'd prefer to not have any hotkeys at all.

Will this disable the hotkeys and have my computer go back to the way it was until this morning?

I'm wondering, though, if we could've contracted another virus or if it's Gateway resetting certain things after the system was wiped.


Thank you.

It sounds like you have sticky keys active. See this tutorial:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/93564-sticky-keys.html

If that doesn't work try scanning with malwarebytes anti-mailware

Nope. Not Stickykeys. Tried that.

Malware turned up nothing. Did that, too.

Do you have another keyboard to try? If it's not hardware then I don't have a clue if you're only running the OS as installed. I've never seen it without it being sticky keys or a hotkey app running in the system tray. Try booting into Safe Mode and see if it still does it.

Search How to boot to safe mode if you don't know the procedure.

The other thing to check would be Control Panel if it has programmable keys doing something strange.

I have tried another keyboard. Unfortunately, it happens with both.

Athena28 said:

I have tried another keyboard. Unfortunately, it happens with both.

Click to expand...

I would still try in safe mode. Anything that can make it go away provides a clue.

By the way how did you get rid of the virus? If you just did a quick format and reinstall the OS that may not be good enough.

Good question. I had the entire thing wiped clean. Then Win Vista was reinstalled. I also just ran OTL and there is nothing there.

I will try it in safe networking & see if it still happens. It's weird. Sometimes it works fine & then sometimes it doesn't. I'm wondering if another user has somehow done something to turn on hotkeys, inadvertently.

When you say "wiped clean" what method are you talking about? A quick format is next to useless. Should be a slow format. Some people go even beyond that and do a security erase multiple pass write zeroes to every sector. But some people can't leave the machine in the back room for a week since it's the only PC they have. I think Diskpart Clean followed by create partition then slow format should be good enough in most cases. Some of those viruses are good at hiding and accessing nasty code by using locations on the disk below the file system. A quicky format won't erase 'em.

edit: btw thanks for the rep.

Unfortunately, I can't answer that fully.

I brought it to a professional who wiped the system. We left it with him for 5 days. He said he needed the time to wipe the whole thing clean & didn't want to just try & root out the virus as I had already done that and was only 85% successful (I was able to get rid of most of it but not all which is why I made the decision to take it to a professional).

He then used the recovery disks I had for my Gateway.

I see. Sounds like he was being conscientious. Only thing I've found that sounds close is this thread:
[SOLVED] Keyboard types Numbers instead of Letters - Tech Support Forum

Thank you.

I'm going to bookmark that if this happens again.

control panel > keyboard. Depending upon your keyboard there might custom settings or hot keys. Also start menu > program files > accessories > ease of access > ease of access center. There might be something there but I can't determine that right now because that menu isn't working for me.

I'd checked both of those, but thank you for the suggestion.

Thankfully, it seems to be back to normal now. I think another user somehow engaged the hotkeys or something. I've definitely kept this thread bookmarked in case it occurs again.

(I sure hope not).

Thank you.

You are welcome. Thanks for the rep.