17 July 2005

Shift Key Turns Off Caps Lock in Windows XP

For those of us who are not touch typists, nothing is more frustrating than pecking out a long paragraph, only to look up and see tHE FIRST LETTER OF THE PARAGRAPH IN LOWERCASE AND THE REST IN UPPERCASE. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to turn off the Caps Lock by hitting the Shift key just as typewriters do? (For those of you too young to remember typewriters, they were devices for neatly putting our thoughts onto paper in the period just after the discovery of fire.)

Windows XP gives you the ability to configure your keyboard to make the Shift Key turn off the Caps Lock.

1. Open the Control Panel by clicking Start and Control Panel
2. Double-click the Regional and Language Options
3. Click the Languages tab, and then click the Details button. If the button called Key Settings is grayed out, click the Add button and add another keyboard definition, for example United States-International.
4. Select the keyboard you normally use and click the Key Settings button.
5. In the panel titled To turn off Caps Lock, select Press the SHIFT key.
6. Click OK, OK, OK.

Now, you will turn off Caps Lock only by pressing one of the Shift keys – a second press of Caps Lock no longer turns it off.