Windows 10: Japanese IME switching back to alphanumeric.

When I try to use the Japanese IME, as soon as I try to type in hiragana, it changes back to alphanumeric on its own. Every time I switch to an input method different than alphanumeric, it switches back automatically and I can't seem to override it at all.Any help would be appreciated.

:)

 

Japanese IME disable alphanumeric input

Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I have not been here in like almost 5 years now.

I have the IME setup such that I can switch from English to Japanese with a keyboard shortcut, but there is one major annoyance: alphanumeric input is always on until I switch it with clicking the toolbar, which defeats the convenience of using the keyboard shortcut. Is there any way to disable the alphanumeric input in the Japanese IME mode? It is literally useless since I can just instantly switch between the two modes.

 

Japanese IME problem

On my Windows 10 1803 machine, I have installed Japanese IME but it allows only 'Half-width Alphanumeric'. I cannot for instance switch to 'Hiragana' ; right clicking the 'A' icon in system tray and clicking 'Hiragana' at the top of the list does change
the icon to the hiragana icon -- whatever I type remain alphanumeric. According to a few articles I have found on the internet, earlier versions of Windows 10 did not have this problem and this is a problem unique to 1803. Microsoft Surface Pro
says that turning OFF the 'Use kana input' switch under 'Hardware keyboard' in the 'Options' for 'Microsoft IME' under the 'Keyboard' will solve the problem. But on my computer the switch has been off all along. Fix Japanese IME after April 2018 update
advises to copy the files in C:\Windows\IME\IMEJP\DICTS from a pre-1803 machine to the same location on the affected 1803 machine and reboot. But I have not access to a pre-1803 machine with Japanese IME. Please help.

 

IME Japanese input

So, set up Japanese as my second input. Each time I hit alt + shift, it will switch to Japanese. However the annoying issue I am dealing with is when it switches to Japanese mode, it is in alphanumeric not hirigana mode, which is extremely annoying because
if someone switches to Japanese mode, of course, they want to start typing in Japanese, not English, so to switch to hirigana I have to hit CTL + CAPS LOCK, which is annoying to have to do two keyboard shortcuts, why can't I have it default in hirigana mode
when I hit alt + shift, instead of alphanumeric?? Is there a way to make hirigana the default option when switching to Japanese IME? Let me know thanks.