uk extended keyboard: hotkey for tilda's characters not working

Hello,
I've got a laptop, sony fz21e, which did come with Vista installed.
Now that windows 7 has been around for a while, my friend has maanged to install it on the laptop, since it can use vista drivers.
Ive added uk extended keyboard to the standard list (which was uk keyboard and some other thingy I dont know). I also set default keyboard to extended.
Now if I want to do a letter with a circumflexy, i type ALTGR+ 6, let go of all keys, then press the required letter. this works.

But for some reason, tilde doesnt work (did in Vista). Normally, AltGr + # (tilde is on # key) followed by required letter. Tried using shift, just in case, but no joy.
Tilde works fine by itself (ie shift #)

OK Thanking you all for Any and all ideas
Greeny

When all else fails, all symbols have ASCII codes that can be looked up - then just use the alt key plus the numeric code for the symbol u want. Here is a link (but there are many)..... http://www.ascii-code.com/ hope this of help. I'm sure you can then setup a rarely used key as a hot key, I just can't remember how to do that - LOL.

Thank you, both of you.
Unfortunately its a laptop without number pad.
There has to be a reason why it doesn't work .. i found somewhere which mentioned that some programs, or services, simply take the [alt-gr and key] for themselves, rendering it unusable by anything (or anyone) else. Is this true? Anyway of knowing what it is thats taking it?

update - traced this to internet explorer, because accents work in Word. Have downloaded firefox, and it works there too. So there seems to be a problem with internet explorer. ok thanks bye.