Another problem I have had is when adding an HID (Human Interface Device), an external keyboard to be specific. It doesn’t really matter what brand, I’ve tried a couple different brands and always ran into the same problem; the internal keyboard renders different characters than those I type into any field once I unplug the external keyboard.

To make a long story (months) short, I found out that the problem is not the keyboard, or the HID drivers themselves. The problem seems to be the internal cache where the device information is stored. And it only seems to occur if you use “Num Lock” and unplug the keyboard while it is still activated.

You might think that looking for the Cache file and clearing that would be the way to fix such a problem and it would probably work with no additional problems, but I found the simplest way was to just Deactivate the “Num Lock” before Unplugging the Keyboard.

If you just take that simple step, you will avoid a major headache using an External Keyboard with Vista.

What do you do?

Think… What changed since the last time you tried to get on the computer and had no problems?

• Did you Add something? A new program or upgrade to an existing program?
• Did you Delete something? Accidents do happen, that’s why they usually have a confirmation for deletions.
• Did you download something from the internet unintentionally (like a virus)?

Let’s assume you did none of the above, but you are still having problems and the computer still won’t boot properly. What then?

As the computer is booting, you should see text telling you what it is trying to do. It will show you that it is accessing your hard drive, CD-ROM, memory etc. When there are problems detected, it should give you a menu with some options like:

1. Start Normal Mode
2. Start Safe Mode
3. Start from Last Known Good Configuration

If you have an idea of what caused the problem, you can start in Safe Mode and try to uninstall or end the program that is at fault.

If you have no idea what is causing the problem, but know that you added something, or there was an automatic upgrade to your system, go with the Last Known Good Configuration option.

If none of the above works, you may have to reinstall your whole operating system (I hope not, you lose a LOT of your stuff that way).

If you are having this type problem and nothing seems to solve the problem, let me know.