My Computer Back in Service

I have been using Windows Vista on my Dell Inspiron 1501 Laptop for a little over a year now and have found out how unreliable Vista can be for simple additions. The ScreenSaver died at some point way back when and I have yet to find out why or how to fix the problem. If I ever find out how to make it work again short of reinstalling Vista, you will be the second to know (after me).

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.