Windows 10: My Caps Lock key won't turn on

My laptop's caps lock key won't turn on whenever I press it. It works as normal except the light doesn't work on.

:)

 

My caps lock won t turn off

I'm typing a letter in word, it was fine then started using all caps it won t turn them the usual way

 

My caps lock won t turn off

Hi Sally,

For us to isolate the issue about being unable to turn off Caps lock, kindly respond to the questions below:

• If you press the Caps Lock button on your keyboard, does it turn off the Caps Lock?
• You mentioned that you are using Word, may we know if the issue is within Word only or the issue persists in using another typing application (i.e. Notepad)?

We look forward to your response.

 

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?