Keyboard Madness

(Gateway Performance XL 1300 Only)

Some of you may have noticed that typing Shift-2 on the Gateway XL 1300 does not produce the expected alias or at sign (@). Instead, you get the double quote sign (“). On the other hand, typing Shift-‘ produces the @ sign instead. Also, typing Shift-3 results in the British Sterling pound sign (£), instead of the expected normal pound sign (#). This happened because the English (United Kingdom) keyboard layout was inadvertently installed as the default keyboard layout. There are several ways to correct this.

1. Click on Start, Settings, Control Panel. Double-click on Keyboard.
   Click on the Input Locales tab.
   Click on English (United States) and then click on Set as Default.
   Click on OK. Close all the open windows and you’re all done.
2. Alternatively, if you have no intention of ever typing the £ sign,
   Follow the above instructions to show the Input Locales tab of the Keyboard Properties dialogue box.
   Then click on English (United Kingdom) and then click on Remove.
   Click on OK. Close all the open windows and you’re done.
3. If you have followed option 1 or if you have not changed the setting because you prefer to have the £ sign available, you may easily switch between the two keyboard layouts by either,
1. Pressing the Left Alt + Shift key together, or
2. Clicking on the EN icon in the Icon Tray found at the bottom right of the screen, and selecting the keyboard layout of your choice.

If at any time you are unsure about which keyboard you are using, just hold the mouse pointer over the EN icon for a second and the current keyboard layout will be displayed.