I am currently running Windows 7 Pro on my PC (new computer). I have found that in the last couple of months my keyboard has ceased being recognized by the OS. By this I mean, most of my special characters no longer work properly... Everything from quotes to question marks, exclamation marks etc. are no longer working or I get completely foreign characters. AFter considerable investigation I have determined what is actually happening is that the OS is not recognizing the actual keyboard and is defaulting to the On Screen Keyboard. When looking at my device manager, it shows an ... HID Keyboard device and an HID compliant Mouse. My keyboard and mouse are wireless (Dell KM714). I have tried uninstalling both, working thru safe mode and uninstalling, I have tried re-installing the correct drivers, on several occasions and in several different ways but all to no avail.
The keyboard was even swapped out and tried on a 2nd computer...it worked properly on the 2nd computer so that eliminates it as the problem.
I have also tried installing a completely different wired keyboard on the malfunctioning computer with the same negative results.
Existing restore points have the same issue and consequently none work. I have tried searching for an updated driver but it tells me the best driver is already installed and I have searched the internet for other suggestions all to no avail. It is clear to me that it simply will not accept any other keyboard or mouse driver. I have also tried disabling the OSK but that too fails....it still continues to go to the OSK even when configured not to.
Can anybody suggest something new for me to try? I have even tried tech support for the computer manufacturer and their suggestion is to re-install windows. This is NOT an option for me. I feel my only recourse may be to go into the registry settings to try and fix (which Im not afraid to do) but I dont know where or what the correct settings would be. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.
