Topic UK keyboard switches to US layout after using Keyman in Outlook 2007 message

I'm using Keyman Professional 7.0 on a Windows Vista computer, and working with Microsoft Office 2007. I have a UK keyboard on my computer. When I'm in an Outlook 2007 message and I activate a Keyman keyboard to type in a Greek quote or word (using the Greek Polytonic precomposed Unicode Keyboard) when I then turn Keyman off to continue typing English in Roman script, my keyboard then acts as if it were a US keyboard (e.g. pressing " at Shift-2 produces @, and conversely pressing @ produces "). However, this only happens in an Outlook message, when I switch to any other program (including Word 2007) the keys behave correctly. This can be illustrated by when I have the Keyman on-screen keyboard showing. If I click into the Outlook message with Shift pressed in the Outlook keyboard, the " symbol at Shift-2 changes to @, then when I click on another program it changes back to ".

This problem doesn't seem to happen if I use the mouse to activate and deactivate the keyboards from the taskbar, it only happens when I use the keyboard shortcuts to activate and deactivate the Keyman keyboard. I use SHIFT-CTRL-G to activate Greek and SHIFT-CTRL-O to switch off keyman.

Also, after the problem has occurred, if I exit Outlook and reopen it, the keyboard returns to normal.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with Outlook 2007 or with Keyman Professional 7.0.

Can you help at all?

Thank you.

Jock

Hi Jock,

You have articulated the problem very clearly. Could you send us a diagnostic report so that we can try and reproduce the setup on your computer as closely as possible, in order to determine the cause of the issue? To send a diagnostic report, view the following site:
http://tavultesoft.com/kb?id=40

I have now sent in a diagnostic report with reference number #14299. I await your response. Thank you.

Hi Jock,

I checked the diagnostic report and was able to reproduce your configuration here. I was then able to reproduce the problem. The issue is caused by two factors:

• US and UK keyboard layouts are installed on your system
  
  
• The way that Outlook handles the Windows language switching hotkeys Ctrl+Shift and Alt+Left Shift conflicting with Keyman hotkeys
  

If you never use the US English keyboard layout (and I would be surprised if you did!), you can remove it with the following steps:

1. Go to Control Panel
   
2. Under "Clock, Language and Region", select "Change keyboards or other input methods"
   
3. Click "Change keyboards"
   
4. Make sure "English (UK) - United Kingdom" is selected as the "Default input language"
   
5. Click on "US" in the "Installed services" list and click Remove
   
6. Click OK, OK to save changes
   

This should resolve the problem permanently. You may have to restart Windows for the US keyboard to be completely uninstalled.

Hi Marc,

I removed the US keyboard following your instructions and then restarted the computer. But the problem still occurs as it did before. I will resend you a diagnostic report with the new settings, so you can look at it again (saves waiting another day because of the time difference). Thanks for your help so far.

Jock

I've sent the diagnostic report #14241.

Hi again Marc,

I tried changing my Keyman shortcut keys to CTRL-ALT-G and CTRL-ALT-O, and this has solved the problem, it seems.

Thank you.

Jock

Hi Jock,

Glad to hear that you were able to find a workaround. Curiously, when I checked your new diagnostic report, the US English keyboard is still listed - which is probably why the problem was persisting. I don't immediately know why the US keyboard would be still there after being removed - this is a Windows issue, not a Keyman one. It is possible that another application is adding it back in, but, I would have thought, unlikely.

Hi Marc,

Although the US Keyboard is stil listed in the diagnostic report I sent you, it doesn't now show up when I look at "text services and input languages" via Control Panel.

The other thing that puzzles me is that the problem only happened in Outlook 2007 messages, and nowhere else. So Outlook must have been doing something funny.

Thanks for your help, anyway.

Jock