Vista - Adding "NoWinKeys" reg entry failed to enable win key shortcuts. Suggestions?

Hey everyone! I just joined the forums and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction on this.

Problem:
A couple weeks ago, all of my [Win Key] + [Another Key] as well as the start menu shortcut all stopped working seemingly out of the blue.

Possible Causes:
I don't recall making any major changes to the system at that time except possibly using Revo Uninstaller in Advance Mode and accidentally deleting a needed registry entry.

Attempted Solutions

• Assigned the following registry entries the indicated values:
  
  Code:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoWinKeys=0
  
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoWinKeys=0
  

• Ran Ad-Aware to check for any malware that could be messing up the system. Only the occassional tracking cookie came up.
  
• This is not so much a solution as a standard practice, but I have ESET NOD32 Anti-Virus update hourly and run scans at every login and more. Nothing notable has been returned by these scans.
  
• Verified that the global policy wasn't disabling the shortcuts

After editing the registry, logging off, and then on again, however, the functionality has not returned. Anyone have any suggestions or know of other components of Windows that might be affecting the shortcuts? Any help / referral to other documentation would be greatly appreciated. I do not know where to go from here on this problem.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!!

Please try the registry file below first - just to see.

RestoreWinKeys.reg

Hello Growl, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You might try the REG download in OPTION TWO in the tutorial below for all users to make sure that NoWinKeys is removed from both the HKCU and HKLM locations in the registry.

Windows HotKeys

Hope this helps,
Shawn

That is the exact registry entry I added and modified previously without any success. Are there other registry entries that could be affecting things?

Hello Growl,

Did you try the one I posted above? It is for both locations in the registry in case it is also at the HKLM location.

Hi Brink, thanks for the welcome! Unfortunately, the registry edits there did not help the problem. (Actually, I had already changed those keys appropriately.) Thanks though!

Growl,

You might see if doing a System Restore using a restore point dated before this problem may be able to fix it for you.

I'm definitely considering it but am curious if there's another I could try first.

Sorry growl, we had to check the simplest solution first . First try another keyboard and check it against your current one before using system restore. Also, I would look into ERUNT for protection in the future against registry tweaks gone wrong.