What could be wrong if @ doesn't work on websites?

[teacherclaire]

   I couldn't find any useful information on the net and I'm certain that somebody here knows the answer.

 

    A friend is having this issue on his old PC with W 7. The @ sign works on MS Office, but not when he's on his e-mail provider.

 

       I've told him to update the keyboard and that's all okay. It doesn't seem to be a driver issue.

 

        Thanks a lot for your time and consideration. 

[elfpattaya]

Change ;language to English US.

[farang51]

If changing language does not help:

Which e-mail program?

Can he copy the @ from MS Office and insert it in his e-mail program?

[Jai Dee]

1 hour ago, teacherclaire said:

A friend is having this issue on his old PC with W 7. The @ sign works on MS Office, but not when he's on his e-mail provider.

 

I had that exact same problem recently when I was doing a fresh install of Win10 on a laptop.

 

Every time I pressed Shift-2 on the keyboard, instead of getting @ I got ".

 

So I tried pressing Shift-' on the keyboard, and lo and behold I got @.

 

So every time I needed to use @ I pressed Shift-' until the Win10 installation was complete, then I was able to change language to English (US).

 

After rebooting into Win10, the keyboard worked perfectly.

[Jai Dee]

If changing the language does not work in your friend's email program, he could try copy/past the symbol from Character Map:

 

[anchadian]

On line keyboard?

[OneMoreFarang]

I don't remember if it was in Windows 7 or in another Windows version.

In at least one version the language setting is per Window.

If a user has i.e. Word and Excel open and he changes the keyboard language in Word then it's only changed for Word and not for Excel.

So pressing the same keyboard key may result in a different character.

 

Apart from that there is an easy way to get any character with this table by using ALT and the numeric keypad.

I.e. ALT 64 (on the numeric keypad) is always @ indepentent of the language settings.

 

https://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html

 

[RichCor]

2 hours ago, Jai Dee said:

Every time I pressed Shift-2 on the keyboard, instead of getting @ I got ".

 

So I tried pressing Shift-' on the keyboard, and lo and behold I got @.

 

So every time I needed to use @ I pressed Shift-' until the Win10 installation was complete, then I was able to change language to English (US).

Yep. When a new keyboard is installed on an OS its supposed to detect the keyboard type and automatically select or offer a choice of keyboard language and key layout (keyboard map). Sometimes the detection goes a bit wonky and a generic keyboard map is used until the user can (hopefully) select the proper map to use.

 

Some applications like to use their own keyboard map.

 

I've also seen issues with assigned hot-keys or an applications 'auto-correct' doing odd things the user either accidentally set or the system file was slightly corrupted. 

 

Tracking down the cause and finding a fix can become an ordeal.

[teacherclaire]

7 hours ago, elfpattaya said:

Change ;language to English US.

I've told him that, thank you very much.

[teacherclaire]

7 hours ago, Jai Dee said:

If changing the language does not work in your friend's email program, he could try copy/past the symbol from Character Map:

 

Thank you very much. It would be easy to have the machine in front of me, but troubleshooting on the phone isn't easy. A great tip. 

[teacherclaire]

6 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I don't remember if it was in Windows 7 or in another Windows version.

In at least one version the language setting is per Window.

If a user has i.e. Word and Excel open and he changes the keyboard language in Word then it's only changed for Word and not for Excel.

So pressing the same keyboard key may result in a different character.

 

Apart from that there is an easy way to get any character with this table by using ALT and the numeric keypad.

I.e. ALT 64 (on the numeric keypad) is always @ indepentent of the language settings.

 

https://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html

 

Thank you very much!!!

[teacherclaire]

4 hours ago, RichCor said:

Yep. When a new keyboard is installed on an OS its supposed to detect the keyboard type and automatically select or offer a choice of keyboard language and key layout (keyboard map). Sometimes the detection goes a bit wonky and a generic keyboard map is used until the user can (hopefully) select the proper map to use.

 

Some applications like to use their own keyboard map.

 

I've also seen issues with assigned hot-keys or an applications 'auto-correct' doing odd things the user either accidentally set or the system file was slightly corrupted. 

 

Tracking down the cause and finding a fix can become an ordeal.

Thank you very much.  

[teacherclaire]

7 hours ago, Jai Dee said:

 

I had that exact same problem recently when I was doing a fresh install of Win10 on a laptop.

 

Every time I pressed Shift-2 on the keyboard, instead of getting @ I got ".

 

So I tried pressing Shift-' on the keyboard, and lo and behold I got @.

 

So every time I needed to use @ I pressed Shift-' until the Win10 installation was complete, then I was able to change language to English (US).

 

After rebooting into Win10, the keyboard worked perfectly.

Thank you very much.