W11 seems to have broken US-International keyboard for me

Hi,
I'm German but prefer using US keyboards for programming so I'm using United States-International to still be able to type Umlauts and ß and whatnot. But since the update to Windows 11, this is broken for me. The dead keys (" ' ~ ` etc) behave as if I pressed them twice. Usually with US-International, pressing " followed by a produces an ä. Now, pressing " just results in "". Strangely, this does not seem to be a system-wide problem, in the search bar of the start menu it works as it should. It also works in the Search bar of Windows Explorer BUT not in the address bar or when renaming files. It works properly everywhere in the Files app, including the search bar, address bar and when renaming files. It does not work in browsers and text editors.

US-International keyboard layout is definitely installed and active. Any pointers as to where I could start troubleshooting this?

I have a laptop whose multi-lingual keyboard can act up strangely too. Lucky me, it seldom happens and disappears after reboot. So, I am guessing that it is a W11 glitch that gets triggered by a multiplicity of factors that have to come together to produce that strange behavior.

What you are describing is a lot worse, and I am guessing that it may be the keyboard driver. You may want to probe further in that direction. Good luck

As a work round can you use the Ascii codes, I have $ not gbp on mine so I press alt+0163 to get £ sign

The-Hive said:

As a work round can you use the Ascii codes, I have $ not gbp on mine so I press alt+0163 to get £ sign

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Yes, this might work for the occasional character but it's not feasible when you're actually typing a longer German text. Funny enough, right now it works fine even in Firefox and Explorer. I have absolutely no idea what triggers this.

Haydon said:

What you are describing is a lot worse, and I am guessing that it may be the keyboard driver. You may want to probe further in that direction. Good luck

Click to expand...

It's a GMMK tenkeyless USB keyboard. I don't think there's a specific driver for it, device manager just lists some generic "HID keyboard device" entries.

Buxbaum666 said:

Hi,
I'm German but prefer using US keyboards for programming so I'm using United States-International to still be able to type Umlauts and ß and whatnot. But since the update to Windows 11, this is broken for me. The dead keys (" ' ~ ` etc) behave as if I pressed them twice. Usually with US-International, pressing " followed by a produces an ä. Now, pressing " just results in "". Strangely, this does not seem to be a system-wide problem, in the search bar of the start menu it works as it should. It also works in the Search bar of Windows Explorer BUT not in the address bar or when renaming files. It works properly everywhere in the Files app, including the search bar, address bar and when renaming files. It does not work in browsers and text editors.

US-International keyboard layout is definitely installed and active. Any pointers as to where I could start troubleshooting this?

Click to expand...

Hi there
In Languages etc simply add another keyboard and then when typing / editing in that language select that keyboard. Choose US model not the Int'l model. You get same sort of problem if you want UK English and choose Int'l Eng model.

For example when typing in English : UK extended keyboard works perfectly for layout.



Of course if the keyboard wont accept the relevant key combos then the only solution is to physically add another keyboard or change the one you have. However I have found those Int'l model settings do have those dead keys or you have to press twice so it's worth switching the layout to the "Domestic" English models.

As a German you must have heard of SAP -- I found on SAP systems using their "ABAP" editor those int'l keyboards were irritating in the extremefor using English with the double press and dead keys -- switching to UK Extended keyboard was the best solution as you got dollar, eur and sterling symbols all in the proper place.

cheers
jimbo

z3r010 said:

Change Keyboard Layout in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to change the keyboard layout for your account in Windows 11. In Windows, you can change your keyboard layout to type in another language or input method you want to use.. The language of your keyboard layout controls the characters that appear on your screen...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

Hi there
that's 100% true of course -- the problem the OP has though (and I've also experienced it too) is that when using the Int'l option for Eng rather than "Domestic versions" you get some dead keys and other ones you have to press they key twice before the symbol appears on the screen. For "One fingured typists" - not a problem but for typical people who type at reasonable rates this can be mega annoying.

Cheers
jimbo

You misunderstand, I actually do want the "dead keys" to be dead on a single press because I'm not using a German keyboard but need to type äöü etc regularly. I've been using the US-International to type like this for years.
To type quotation marks, I press " followed by the space bar. My problem is that the dead keys are not dead but behave as if I've pressed them twice even though I only pressed them once.

I still think that there is a possibility that the generic keyboard driver is corrupted. Try to uninstall the driver, shut down, unplug the keyboard, start, plug in the keyboard, to get a fresh driver. Good luck

Haydon said:

I still think that there is a possibility that the generic keyboard driver is corrupted. Try to uninstall the driver, shut down, unplug the keyboard, start, plug in the keyboard, to get a fresh driver. Good luck

Click to expand...

Tried that, the issue still persists. There are four HID Keyboard Device entries under Keyboards. Uninstalled them all, unplugged and rebooted and they're back again.

I use US Kbd and US-Intl.Kbd. No problems at all after Upgrade W10 -> W11.

syntoh

Buxbaum666 said:

Tried that, the issue still persists. There are four HID Keyboard Device entries under Keyboards. Uninstalled them all, unplugged and rebooted and they're back again.

Click to expand...

I fear you have to try a clean install, rebuild your machine from bare metal.

I was bedeviled for years by exactly the same problem - a deadkey press generates the equivalent of two key presses instead of proceeding to an accented character. Reinstalling the Windows, in my case Win10, solved the problem, but only temporarily. It worked for about days to months before the computer reverted to showing the same old problem.

I finally solved the problem w/o reinstalling the Windows. The malfunction of US-International (USI) was caused by certain apps that start after computer boot. I found this out by starting the computer in Safe Mode, and the keyboard setting of USI works perfectly.

So I checked the startup app list and disable all but the apps from the well-known reliable sources. To do this,
- Task Manager (right click on Task Bar to get the menu) -> Startup
- disabled all apps except those from usually reliable sources, for example, Microsoft, Intel, Google, ...
- reboot and see if the keyboard works correctly with USI. Works perfectly for me then.
- one by one add i(enable) your favorite startup apps back and reboot, till the problem comes back. You then find the culprit app.
- as a bonus of checking the startup list I discovered and disabled/removed some suspicious apps - executables in the user "Temp" directories, such as C:/Users/..../AppData/.../Temp/...