` arjan's blog: CTRL + Shift what a combo..

Monday, September 29, 2008

CTRL + Shift what a combo..

Windows (XP or Vista) users in the US probably don't experience this, but Europeans do: There is a "hidden feature" in both XP and Vista namely the CTRL and Shift shortcut that really changes things drastically in your Windows environment...

So what is the shortcut all about?! Well it switches the keyboard layout to the next keyboard layout that is setup on your computer. So what is the big deal? You'll only have one keyboard layout, right?! So no sweat! Well if you live in the US that's correct, but if you live in The Netherlands for instance and you selected your own time zone and country during initial setup, Windows will do a couple of nifty things for you automatically...

Windows will automatically create settings for your home language AND create a keyboard layout setting, the default one for your country, although in a lot of countries the keyboard layout is US 101.

And there you are working on some document or Java code or even writing a blog. You intend to select a  line or a couple of words so you press CTRL + Shift. You change your mind so you don't press any other key while holding down CTRL + Shift and you release them. Et-voila! when you continue typing you find out that a lot of the keys you hit do not turn out to be the keys you intended to use!

Actually I myself found out this "hidden feature" already a couple of years ago, but it seems today a lot of people are still suffering from this: closing all programs, rebooting windows or even reinstalling Windows to get rid of the problem.

So the one feature I would definitely want to be in Windows 7 or actually NOT to be in the system is the default keyboard layout switching shortcut CTRL + Shift.

Thank you Microsoft. Maybe Bill and Seinfeld can record an item on this topic, sounds like a lot a of fun to me...

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