custom-defined alt+ctrl keys stop working after some time

Hi all,

I am using Windows 7 64bit. Using the MS Keyboard Layout Creator, I generated a customized keyboard layout in which I assigned certain special characters to keyboard combinations with the Alt and Ctrl keys, e.g. Alt+Ctrl+; to get the German letter 'ö'.

Everything works fine up to some point - for reasons I don't understand the keyboard assignments suddenly stop working: if I then press the corresponding combination, no keyboard output is generated at all. Strangely enough, this occurs individually for each program: for example, the shortcuts stopped working in, say, Firefox but may still be operational in, say, Word (or vice versa). Moreover, closing and restarting the program restores the proper keyboard function albeit only until the next occurrence of the problem. As I said, I haven't figured out why and how this happens; sometimes it takes a couple of hours, sometimes only minutes.

Did anybody experience similar problems, does anyone have a solution?
Thanks in advance and best,
A

Hi Jacee,

thx for the fast reply. Yes, I am aware that many programs offer access to certain symbols via program-specific shortcuts, e.g. in Word 2007 you could use Ctrl+: followed by pressing o to get 'ö'.

However, the whole idea of defining a custom keyboard layout was to have one quick way to access commonly used symbols that works in all programs. As I said in my original post, using the custom layout the behavior of the key combinations is erratic and highly annoying. Just to be clear, I am looking for a solution to this original problem and not some workaround.

Thanks anyhow and cheers.
A

p.s.: I forgot to mention that I have used the same layout with the same programs under Windows XP happily and without any problems for 3+ years. What's different in Windows 7 that causes these problems?