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Where's my @ key?
 

Where's my @ key?

38 Posts
23 Users
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Free Member
Topic starter
 

Since Singletrak really does seem to be the font of all IT knowledge and all...

Number 1 son's school laptop is recently back from repair. It had a burned out chip. Replacing that activated encryption that we didn't even know it had. After a week or so we managed to retrieve the encryption key and got it booted up last night. Success! But now Windows wants us to change the PIN. Fine. Needs to send a code to the retrieval account. Fine. So I go to confirm the email address of the retrieval account and of course the @ doesn't work. Shift and ' gets me a diagonal ' and shift and 2 gets me a '. I don't know of any other way to get an @ and I'm nearly crying in frustration.

So, anyone any ideas? It's three weeks he's been without his school laptop now.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:36 am
Full Member
 

That is odd. Can you copy/paste the symbol from somewhere as a short term fix?

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:40 am
 Spin
Free Member
 

Yeah, copy and paste if you can.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:41 am
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Oh yeah, should have said. Tried to copy and paste the '@emailaddress.com' bit on the prompt and it wouldn't let me.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:44 am
Free Member
 

Try shift and every key until you get an @

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:44 am
Full Member
 

Check what keyboard is installed in settings. This is not the same as the physical keyboard, you can have a US English physical keyboard but select a different layout in settings.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:50 am
Yak reacted
 Haze
Full Member
 

I had this years ago, unfortunately can’t remember how I solved it!

Have you checked regional settings?

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:53 am
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Can you do that before the login screen, though? I'm not sure you can.

Will try the shift plus everything method. Can't believe I didn't think of that last night!

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:53 am

 Haze
Full Member
 

Ah gotcha, sorry not that I’m aware of..think maybe shift and try every key as suggested above if you haven’t already

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 6:57 am
Full Member
 

if you type osk in the search bar it will bring up the on-screen keyboard so you can mouse click characters (or are you saying it's forcing a PIN change before you can get to the desktop, if so does Windows key + Ctrl + O launch it at that stage?)

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:04 am
thols2 reacted
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Yep, the latter. Tried shift, alt, and alt gr plus every key and still no @. Tried the onscreen keyboard at the new pin prompt, but it disappears when I get the next screen.

SO FRUSTRATING

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:15 am
Full Member
 

It's probably 'above' the 2. Try

SHIFT 2

or

ALT 2

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:17 am
Free Member
Topic starter
 

No. It's not. That was my second try.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:21 am
Full Member
 

Maybe typing the ASCII code. I think that is 64 for @. So hold down the alt key, type 64 and then release alt.

You can't copy the place holder text as it is not a real value just a ghost value. It's there any other @'s on the screen you could copy (or at any point prior to this screen)? Use ctrl-c if you can find one to select and ctrl-c to paste. These often work even when a field does not obviously accept pasting.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:36 am
Full Member
 

Has the keyboard language setting been changed? Once had a keyboard set to Australian, which has the @ and " the 'wrong' way around.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:50 am
Free Member
 

Plug in an external keyboard?

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 7:56 am
mashr reacted

Free Member
Topic starter
 

Tried external keyboards, copying and pasting, which was incredibly frustrating as I could select, right click and copy, but right clicking in the field I wanted to paste it to gave me nothing. Ctrl C, ctrl V did nothing.  And after about sixteen restarts all of a sudden @ was above the 2. With me having changed literally nothing. Maddening. Currently turning bitlocker off, but I've written the 48 digit key on the laptop in Sharpie. Just in case it turns itself back on.

Thanks everyone.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 8:08 am
Haze reacted
Full Member
 

Try Alt-Gr + 2 (Alt-Gr is the Alt key to the right of the spacebar). Or the onscreen keyboard.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 8:10 am
 Haze
Full Member
 

@ was above the 2

Isn't that the US layout? It's coming back to me vaguely, it was years ago when in my PC tinkering days when I had it.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 8:39 am
dove1 reacted
Full Member
 

shift '  in the UK layout.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 9:02 am
Full Member
 

Yes it's the US layout which is the likely default.

but right clicking in the field I wanted to paste it to gave me nothing

Lots of fields, especially password related, won't have a context menu but the keyboard paste shortcut will work.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 9:06 am
Free Member
 

Just one for future reference:

Hold down the ALT key, type 64, then release the ALT key.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 9:59 am
Free Member
 

While we're on the subject, where's the "any" key that Homer Simpson could never find?

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 10:08 am
Full Member
 

Hold down the ALT key, type 64, then release the ALT key.

Note this only works on the num pad, not the normal numbers at the top of the keyboard. Can be annoying on many laptops with no numpad.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 10:59 am

Full Member
 

Hold down the ALT key, type 64, then release the ALT key.

Don't think ALT keys have worked for years on Windows.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 11:03 am
Free Member
 

Hold down the ALT key, type 64, then release the ALT key.

Don’t think ALT keys have worked for years on Windows.

you had me curious .... can confirm it works here on (a network wed , It controlled) windows 11 including in my login, in my search bar and in documents. alt 64 produces an @

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 11:08 am
Full Member
 

US and UK keyboards have reversed @ and ", so as above, try shift-' next to <return>. I use a clicky gaming US keyboard for all work in my home office and aside from forward slash, I mentally swap the two keys by default. I use a folding keyboard at work and only recently swapped it to a UK version.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 11:29 am
Full Member
 

Plug in an external keyboard. If that's equally affected, it's the wrong keyboard layout settings as TiRed and others have suggested. If that works, it's broken, send it back to the repair place.

Is everything else as expected? Shift+3 gives you a £ symbol, the \ key works?

Don’t think ALT keys have worked for years on Windows.

It does but you need to use the numeric keypad. On a regular-sized laptop that means you need to turn on Num Lock to remap a section of the keyboard. Then it'll be Alt+O, Alt+U or something similar.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 12:42 pm
Full Member
 

Alternatively,

Use your PC to spin up a Linux bootable pendrive. That will immediately tell you whether it's hardware or software.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 12:44 pm
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Sorted as of about ten posts ago, when it decided that shift plus 2 was going to work this time,  despite not working the previous 15 or so. *shrugs*

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 12:50 pm
Full Member
 

Sorry, I completely missed that post.

If it's on shift-2 then it's set to US keyboard layout, that needs changing (unless you actually have a US keyboard).

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 1:13 pm
Full Member
 

It’s especially frustrating when a thing you have done before (and failed) now works.

bonus points if it’s someone you asked to help who has that happen, and as a result fixes the issue/solves the problem. ‘I literally did that myself a minute ago’ just doesn’t seem believable sometimes.

even more so when the ‘thing’ is ‘press a button’. I have now accepted that pressing a button is a thing that can be done wrong. Somehow.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 1:20 pm

Full Member
 

Usually accompanied by “have you tried just… (insert obvious solution”

which you have. They do that. It works. For some reason.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 1:23 pm
Full Member
 

I'm going to get "well, why didn't it work when I did it?" tattooed on my partner's arm.

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 1:46 pm
Free Member
 

Don’t think ALT keys have worked for years on Windows.

Yes it does - I use it all of the time for: µ ° ±  (230, 248, 241)

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 1:49 pm
geck0 reacted
Full Member
 

Huh. Sensible stuff. I just use it for silly things like ♪♫singing♫♪ or playing cards ♥♦♣♠

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 2:42 pm
Full Member
 

Appropriately for this thread, I used Alt-92 to type a \ backslash when the US keyboard is selected as, to the best of my knowledge, it's not mapped to a UK keyboard at all.

I know two Siâns and one Liân so Alt-131 is useful here.

Alt-169 is the registered trademark symbol, I had a brief dalliance with Couga® as a moniker many years ago (like, ICQ days).

The Alt Gr key adds acute accents to vowels. á é í ó ú

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 2:52 pm
 Haze
Full Member
 

Yes it does – I use it all of the time for: µ ° ±  (230, 248, 241)

° is also 0176

Cheers for the ± I always typed +/-

² 0178 another regularly used

 
Posted : 05/02/2025 3:03 pm
Full Member
 

I’m going to get “well, why didn’t it work when I did it?” tattooed on my partner’s arm.

[img] [/img]

One big advantage of the screen keyboard on an iPad is that just tapping and holding the specific character brings up all the appropriate accents for the various languages that use the same Roman alphabet. I also discovered, by accident, that tapping and holding the 0 gets °.

 
Posted : 06/02/2025 1:45 am

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