Caps Lock interrupting Games

[Lou P]

I've played several games on Windows 7 now. Every game I've played I have had problems when I hit the caps lock key. When I push it the computer goes back to the desktop and then two things will happen. I can't even go back to the game when clicking the icon on the taskbar or when I click on the icon the game will open back up within a window (instead of full screen).
The game that won't open back up is operation flashpoint: dragon rising and the game that opens in a window is assassins creed.
This doesn't seem to be a problem others are experiencing, because I can't find any information on the issue. Also I believe it's a Windows 7 issue rather than my hardware because it never happened when using Vista.

My setup:
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name STUDIOXPS
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Studio XPS 1640
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz, 2000 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A10, 7/23/2009
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Name ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Adapter Type ATI display adapter (0x9488), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Adapter RAM 1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes)
Installed Drivers atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver Version 8.632.1.2000
Resolution 1920 x 1080 x 59 hertz
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\atikmdag.sys (8.1.1.921, 5.76 MB (6,037,504 bytes)

 

[Fumz]

I'd check my keyboard settings to see what, if anything, cap lock may have been replaced with?

 

[Lou P]

Disabled notification

I used Regedit to disable the notification.
Go to:
Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Widcomm\BTConfig\General
KeyIndication value: 0

This fixed the screen notification but the Caps Lock still interrupts the game and goes to the desktop.

Any ideas on a fix?

 

[Lou P]

The keyboard settings only let me change the cursor blink rate and character repeat

 

[Fumz]

Does Dell have a keyboard driver that would give your more options? I've never heard of caps getting itself confused with alt tab?

 

[Lou P]

I'll look on dell's website, but from what I've seen on their website in the past I don't think they have any keyboard drivers or apps that allow for anything like this.

 

[Lou P]

I couldn't find anything from Dell. I guess for now I'll just have to disable the caps lock key.
I'm still open to ideas though.
Thanks for the help

 

[Fumz]

You could try binding the caps key to something ingame... like scoreboard or something non-essential to kicking keister.

 

[Grimhowl]

Have you tried another keyboard? It's possible someone spilled something in yours and the keys up the left side are shorting out (or that it just got old).

Alternatively, have you checked to make sure that it's recognizing the correct LANGUAGE of keyboard? If it's not an English 10X key keyboard (with X being however many keys your keyboard actually has) as far as the system knows, it could be faultily assigning Caps Lock keystrokes to other keys, which could screw up how your games react.

 

[wixzard]

Hi, There are two things that do this I have heard of.
One is dell quickset, there is a long discussion and a solution here (setting one of the registry settings to 1):
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3526/t/19311373.aspx

I didnt have the above isssue, so cannot verify.

The other is of all things BTTray.exe. This is a bluetooth background process and if you kill it from task manager. The problem can also be solved. Totally beats me why a bluetooth manager decides to notify of caps lock... wtf. But killing the process actually solved this very annoying problem for me when i play Battlefield BC2 in Vista ultimate. Hopefully it works just as good in windows 7.

I also found the Bluetooth tray as a startup app in windows and removed it so i dont have to keep killing the process every time i want to play games. There is probably a registry setting for it somewhere. but couldnt be bothered looking for it. Who uses bluetooth anyway?

 

[CaspersOnIt]

*BUMP* - I Realise this is an old thread - But it just came in VERY useful - Thanks to Wixzard for his comment!

I had exactly the same issue as Lou P, where touching the Caps Lock key would pull me out of the game I was playing (WoW, BF3, NFSU, Etc...) and as Wixzard stated - turning off the BTTray.exe process and disabling the BT device worked great - no more game drop outs.

Thanks guys.
Hope this helps others!

 

[Trucidation]

Opening the Bluetooth app and then disabling Bluetooth and telling it to go away should suffice; no need to kill the process. I have a Dell laptop running this but it never was an issue for me, so I find this problem kinda odd.

In any case, you can safely turn off Bluetooth and only turn it back on when you need it.

 

[Steve0]

disable caps lock notification

The games are being interrupted when the caps lock notification pops up and takes the focus away from the game window. If you have an HP computer, to disable the caps lock notification, search your registry for "hpCaslNotification". Once you find it, locate the string

1. Start
2. In the run/search line type REGEDIT
3. In registry editor select the Edit drop down menu and then select Find, enter hpCaslNotification and search until you find the following string hputils.hpCaslNotification.1
4. Double click on the string and change the value to hputils.hpCaslNotification.0
5. Reboot and the notification will be off.

Using this method you will only turn off the notification and not disable any other features such as bluetooth, etc.