Virtual PC in Europe - Fix for the Dreaded Sticky Ctrl Key Bug!
I know many developers who rely on Virtual PC 2004 these days, both for application compatibility testing purposes and also for beta testing releases of Visual Studio 2005 ("Whidbey") and SQL Server 2005 ("Yukon"). A few colleagues and I have been trying to track down a little issue for some time, and I wanted to share it more broadly outside of Microsoft to see if anyone else has had the same problem.
The problem is this: when you toggle a Virtual PC guest into full screen mode with [Alt Gr]+[Enter], the [Ctrl] key often gets "stuck" down. If you start typing in the guest, you often see funny things happen: the taskbar goes into multi-select mode; some characters don't appear etc. Hitting the [Ctrl] key once resets it and brings you back to normal.
A few of us raised this as a bug with the Virtual PC team, and it turns out to be a problem specific to UK keyboards (and possibly others in Europe). The [Alt Gr] key is effectively the same as pressing [Ctrl] + [Alt] together; when you release it, VPC only toggles off the [Alt] portion of the keystroke, leaving [Ctrl] held down as far as the guest is concerned.
The solution: change the host key to something else on a UK Virtual PC machine. I can recommend [Right Ctrl], since it's not used for anything else. Once you make this change, you'll never again have this problem - toggling to and from full screen works just fine. The bug has been fixed moving forwards too, which is good news.
Comments
Anonymous
April 22, 2004
Thank you very much!!!!
I had this problem a lot of times with my Italian Keyboard!
Thanks a lot!!!Anonymous
April 22, 2004
This is also a problem with VPC and Swedish keyboards.
A similar problem seems to exist on the Remote Desktop client. I can only use ALT GR characters if I press CTRL+ALT instead.Anonymous
April 22, 2004
Jason, Alt Gr is by default reserved as the host key of course. But are you still unable to use this key in the guest even if you've changed the host key to something else?Anonymous
April 22, 2004
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April 22, 2004
"The bug has been fixed moving forwards too" what about when the bug is moving backwards?Anonymous
April 23, 2004
Tim, in VPC I am able to use ALT GR when the host key is changed to right CTRL.
But I know of no solution in the Remote Desktop client.Anonymous
April 23, 2004
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April 23, 2004
I too am having the same problem við Remote Desktop (like many others here in Iceland). :(
So if somebody know of a fix for that... that would be just great :)Anonymous
April 23, 2004
I have had problems using other keys than modifiers (i.e. Shift, Control, Alt, Windows) as host keys: E.g. You can use Pause as a host key, but you won't be able to toggle full screen mode using Pause+Enter. Have anyone else experienced this problem?
(As a curiosity, this also applies to Right Windows on my Dell laptop where I have to press Fn+Windows since there is only one of them).Anonymous
April 25, 2004
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April 27, 2004
Tim and AtliB,
I just checked with Remote Desktop (to a Windows 2000 Server and a Windows Server 2003) again and now it works... Hmmm...
I'm sure I've had problems with this before since I remember getting annoyed when trying to write a backslash (ALT GR + "+" on a Swedish keyboard).Anonymous
June 24, 2004
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July 22, 2004
As stated in this thread there are often problems with ALT GR key combinations and the Remote Desktop client (mstsc.exe).
On my PC I was able to make the "Alt Gr" work as expected again very easily (for XP), but hard to find out:
Open Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages Tab -> Details Button
In the Dialog "Text Services and Input Languages" press the Button "Key Settings". If that button is disabled, just add another language with the "Add" button.
In the "Advanced Key Settings" dialog press "Change Key Sequence" for "Switch between input languages". Now you are close:
In the "Change Key Sequence" Dialog uncheck "Switch keyboard layout" and confirm the change through the series of dialogs.
You may remove the extra language if you like.
In my test, however, I found that the problem does not occur with more than one language/keyboard configured.
I hope, that's it. What are your results?Anonymous
July 27, 2004
I've also had problems with the <TAB> and <ESC> keys not working on the guest machine... and I'm using a US Keyboard.Anonymous
January 13, 2005
Verdens mest ligegyldige blog » Remote Desktop og AltGrAnonymous
May 17, 2005
same problem in WIN2003 terminal server with some RDP clients, (not all)
Right ctrl+ALT works fine
Alt Gr key not working with some clients ?
is there a fix from MS ?Anonymous
July 24, 2005
This fix did not work for me. I have an IBM laptop. I have heard of other people have problems with US IBM laptops (which do not have a Windows key) running Virtual PC. The problem isn't necessarily just a keyboard problem. I have seen cases where the keyboard input is not displayed, but Right Alt-P (pause) shows the input in the paused window. The Ctrl key theory doesn't seem to fit.
If you can't get your keyboard working during a demo, use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to your virtual machine.Anonymous
July 31, 2005
Thanx, this helped me out!!
I am happy now.Anonymous
August 11, 2005
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August 16, 2005
My problem is another:
I can't use ALT-GR in the guest OSes.
My Host-Key is the Windows or the right control-key. Using VPC2004-SP1.
ALT-GR combinations like or @ only work this way:
PRESS+HOLD ALT-GR
PRESS+RELEASE left Control-Key
Hit the or @ key
RELEASE ALT-GR
Is this problem also known? Or is there a fix or workaround?Anonymous
August 16, 2005
Another problem I get with DOS:
Sometimes the Shift-Key seems to change to pressed state. This occurs when moving around with the cursor (cursor-key is held down).
A very annoying thing, you just want to scroll trhough a text, and are suddenly marking it! And the Shift-State will remain then!!
But now I have a solution for this, and I'm posting here for other people that are searching about their VPC-Keyboard-problems.
Solution:
The Key-Repeat-Rate of the host-OS is too fast. Don't know how that affects VPC and the guest-OS in detail, but if you make the key-repeat-rate slower in your host-windows, the problem dissappears!
Anonymous
October 12, 2005
The fix supplied with KB 889677 made my sticky key problem dissapear: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=889677Anonymous
November 08, 2005
I didn't have this problem when I was running English Windows XP on both my machines (client and server) but when we changed to Swedish Windows XP on both machines the [AltGr] problem started (as described above).Anonymous
December 02, 2005
I tried to set right CTRL as host key. ALT GR didn't work. But then I set HOME as the host key. ALT GR worked...Anonymous
December 05, 2005
Many thank's. This solved the problem.Anonymous
May 16, 2006
Thank you so much for this solution, I had to reinstall one of our machines just because the admin password set during the install all of a sudden did not work when connecting with remote desktop client. This made my dayAnonymous
August 16, 2006
My name is David Bucher. I am using Virtural PC and here is the problem I am having.
When ever I start this program and begin typing it repeats characters almost uncontrollably. Example: if I try to type in a password i.e. password it does this passsssssssssss when I only depressed three keys. I have looked to make sure my keyboard is not configured to do this. I would be forever in debt to you if you could help with this solution.
Please email a response to me at: Davidb17@verizon.net
thanks for any assistance, it would be greatly appreciated.Anonymous
August 20, 2006
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September 11, 2006
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October 10, 2006
I had problems with Alt Gr using Remote Desktop Connection. Thanks to Alex my problem is now solved: In the RDC client before connecting, you expand "Options>>". Then switch to "Local Resources" and set "Apply Windows key combinations" to "On the local computer".Anonymous
September 17, 2007
PingBack from http://paulelso.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/virtual-pc-fix-for-the-dreaded-sticky-ctrl-key-bug/Anonymous
July 26, 2008
I've been using Microsoft Virtual PC product for many years, posting separate VPCs for each client'sAnonymous
July 26, 2008
I've been using Microsoft Virtual PC product for many years, posting separate VPCs for each client'sAnonymous
July 26, 2008
I've been using Microsoft Virtual PC product for many years, posting separate VPCs for each client's