Windows 10: Dell with Windows 10 is locked on Screensaver. NumLock Enter no go. Shift button pressed...

Locked up. Cursor moves shakily.

:)

 

pressing shift turns on caps lock

typing in all lowercase because this is incredibly frustrating. whenever i press shift, the caps lock is turned on. i have windows 10, and this started happening after installing the most recent update this morning - today is 12/6/2015. yes, sticky
keys and filter keys are disabled. when shift is pressed, the light actually comes on for the caps lock button, so i think somehow the shift function was replaced by the caps lock function. i have tried using the regedit fix to disable the caps lock button.
this caused the caps lock button to no longer work, which was expected, although the shift key still turns caps lock on.

 

Press Shift Key to turn off Caps Lock

Actually, I get asked this quite a lot

There is, however, a very good reason to prefer this (old) „Typewriter Caps lock“-behavior over the new default, and it's simply this: if „Press the SHIFT key“ (instead of „Press the CAPS LOCK key“) is selected, then the behavior of „Caps lock“ changes from being a „toggle key“ to being a key that can only be used to turn „Caps lock“ on – to turn „Caps lock“ off, one has to press (either) one of the Shift keys.

This can be advantageous for touch typists, who are used to writing long passages of text without looking at the keyboard, and especially so if they're (C/C++) programmers, who may still regularly find themselves typing in variable names of CONSTANTS_IN_UPPERCASE.

That's because, if Caps lock is not a toggle key, it's not necessary to keep track of its current „toggle state“ in your head:

• If I want „Caps lock“ to be on, I can press CAPS as often as I like. If it happened to be enabled already, nothing changes; otherwise, I can be sure it's enabled afterwards.
  
  
• If I want „Caps lock“ to be off, I can simply press SHIFT

This sounds like a hypothetical advantage, but it's not. I work as a programmer, and I often find myself typing in code like the following:

/* Some debugging code; will only be included in debug builds: */
#if defined _DEBUG

Afterwards, I may pause a little, to think about the code line I would like to type in next. Now, if „Caps lock“ is a toggle key, I may (once I decide to continue) be unsure if I actually remembered to turn „Caps lock“ off at the end of ‘_DEBUG’.

Did I? Did I not? – The only way to be sure, is to look.

This is not so, if the „Press the SHIFT key“ behavior is enabled. If unsure, I can just press SHIFT once, be sure of the set state, and merrily continue may way.

That, for me, is the single most important reason to prefer the „Press the SHIFT key“ setting. Also, interestingly, this used to be the default behavior in the old days … at least, until Microsoft decided to ditch Windows 9x in favor of Windows NT¹.

¹ Actually, my memory could be wrong in this regard and I'm not completely sure … maybe someone more knowledgeable in those matters can confirm that the „Caps lock“ default behavior was indeed changed during the switch from Windows 9x to Windows XP?

 

Pressing "Enter" on Numeric Pad Turns Off NumLock (?)

This started happening with a brand new Windows 10 machine. No matter what brand of USB based keyboard I use I keep having the same problem.

Here are the system specs: I will add any further information as necessary.

Dell OptiPlex 3040

Windows 10 Pro x86-64

Dell USB keyboard model KB216

Things I have already attempted:

• This suggestion from SuperUser
  
• This other post on SuperUser
  
• Swapping to a different USB port
  
• Updating BIOS
  
• Updating device drivers
  
• Trying a different keyboard
  
• Dell Diagnostics scans
  
• Turned off "Turn on Toggle Keys by holding down the NUM LOCK key for 5 seconds" in Control Panel >> All Control Panel Items >> Ease of Access Center >> Make the keyboard easier to use