Solved Only the apostrophe symbol will not show; everything else works fine

[samuelh73]

Hello and I hope someone can help because this is infuriating and I cannot quite find an answer anywhere else.

Basically, one day the apostrophe symbol stopped working. It will not show when the key is depressed but the quotation mark will when I use Shift. In fact, I thought at first my old keyboard was malfunctioning, so I got a new one, and that is when I discovered the issue. I use this computer for gaming, not writing, so I cannot say exactly when this occurred.

These are the actions I have taken thus far:

1. I cleared and reloaded the drivers for the keyboard (Microsoft Ergonomic split keyboard) even though it is obvious the keyboard is not the issue (since it happened to the previous one). I tried using a third keyboard and the same issue was present.
2. I checked the keyboard setup and it is set for US. I switched to a UK and Canadian set up, then back again.
3. I updated my graphic drivers and ensured Win7 was also updated.
4. The strangest part of all: If I pull up the On Screen Keyboard (Ease of Access Center), the apostrophe key will not work there either. The quotation symbol will, but not the apostrophe. However, I can enter Alt+39 and the apostrophe will appear.

The key itself works fine; it just will not produce an apostrophe. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could shed light on this.

 

[oscer1]

Hi can you try a restore point before the problem started? can you run a live cd like Ubuntu to see if the key works correctly? also cant hurt to run SFC.

 

[samuelh73]

Thank you for replying!

I am not familiar enough with Ubuntu to use it competently, but I did use the SFC command. It said no integrity violations were found. There was also mention of doing it in Safe Mode, so I did that; same result.

However, the apostrophe worked! I rebooted as normal and it worked then as well...until I logged in to post this reply. Now it does not work again. It sounds like maybe it is an issue with Chrome? I will focus my search on that.

 

[samuelh73]

UPDATE: So, it appears something is loaded during Start Up that causes the apostrophe to become unusable. I can enter it when my computer first starts up, but as it loads other programs it suddenly becomes unusable. Now it is just a matter of finding out which program it is and correct it.

 

[iko22]

You can diagnose what conflict is occuring at Start Up by performing a Clean Boot.

 

[samuelh73]

Thank you everyone who helped me. I was able to locate the conflict, but not why there was one; however, I left it off since it wasn’t an essential program.

Thank you once again!

 

[oscer1]

Glad you got it sorted

 

[XweAponX]

Check the language set for your KB.

Oh, it was a startup program? Sometimes a virus will plant a startup item, which prevents certain keys from being pressed, especially if they can be used to kill the virus.