Peculiar issue with WinKey... not sure if it's hardware or not

*** UPDATE ***

Being a pack rat finally paid off. I kept a spare keyboard for my laptop and was able to swap it into place. The WinKey works! I've no idea why that one key failed on that other keyboard. It's just plain weird. But, it's not expensive enough to give any further consideration, unless of course this keyboard ends up suffering from the same fate.

But one thing still puzzles me. When I press "WinKey + TAB", I do not get the floating current apps stack that I can scroll through. It's the plain old flat mini dialog with icons for each app. I double checked the "Performance" settings and nothing is unchecked. Does this require "Aero" to be installed? I've heard it's very graphics intensive, so... maybe not a good idea to install it.


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OK, I've been wrestling with this very strange problem and I'm kind of at my wit's end with it. It's the WinKey, that "Windows Logo" key adjacent to the ALT key on the left (or right, depending upon your keyboard). It stopped working for me today, on my HP Pavilion dv5 laptop. Or at least I noticed it today. It *was* working yesterday, and I'm sure of it.

My present state of affairs is that I installed a new hard drive and then installed a fresh new copy of Windows Ultimate yesterday. Since then I've had to do a lot of updating, because my install was Vista 1.0. SP1 and SP2 had to be installed, plus numerous updates. I also installed a few programs, including Microsoft Office, but nothing unusual beyond what I had before in Vista Home Premium.

So today I go to use WinKey + M to minimize all windows, and nothing happens. Hmmmm... :huh: So, I try a few other WinKey combinations and still, nothing. All of my other keys work. Next, I plug in a USB keyboard and sure enough WinKey works on it (although I can't get the floating current apps graphic--it's just the basic task bar tile). Well, if the USB keyboard works then certainly it shouldn't be an OS problem.

Right.

So, I swap my hard drive for the older one with Vista Home Premium. I boot up. I expect WinKey to work. It doesn't. Now that should point even more to a hardware problem, right? But I don't get it. This is a very reliable keyboard and all other buttons work, plus WinKey is NOT a heavily used key anyway (letter keys get far more use and none have failed). I searched the Internet and found nothing about my laptop model suffering from keyboard key problems.

Lastly, I brought up the devices window, selected Keyboard, and uninstalled all keyboard drivers (and elected to remove driver files in the process). When I rebooted, Windows found the "new" keyboard (PS/2) and installed the drivers successfully. But no... the keyboard's WinKey still doesn't work.

I guess the WinKey on this keyboard mysteriously went bad? I mean, it's not even flaky, working partially. I popped off the cap and played with the button underneath and couldn't even get the WinKey function to trigger just once. I do have a spare keyboard somewhere... I'll have to unearth it and give it a go, but it's a bother, as it requires some disassembling of the laptop. Still, it'll be best to truly narrow it down. I'm damned sure as hell certain that the WinKey worked on that one.

Meanwhile... anybody have some suggestions or ideas about this peculiar problem?

OK, problem updated... turned out to be hardware, but I have another question. See above.