Q My keyboard doesn’t display the correct symbols for
certain keys. When I type the “ symbol it displays the @ sign, and vice-versa.
There seems to be no pound sign (£) at all. I have even bought a new keyboard
but it’s just the same. Is there a way to get it working properly?
Dennis Sayles
A This is a common problem with Windows, which happens when it hasn’t been set up properly. It’s not a hardware problem, so it’s likely that the first keyboard worked fine.
Windows thinks you’re using an American keyboard, which uses Shift and 2 for @ and doesn’t have a pound sign.
To re-educate Windows, click on Start, Control Panel (or Start, Settings, Control Panel) and double-click on the Regional and Language Options icon (click on Switch to Classic View on the left if you don’t see the Regional and Language Options icon).
In the first tab, select ‘English (United Kingdom)’ from the drop-down menu if it’s not already selected. Click on the Advanced tab and do the same. Then click on the Languages tab and on the Details button. Click on Add and choose ‘English (United Kingdom)’ from the ‘Input language’ list. If the word US is shown underneath, greyed out, tick the box marked ‘Keyboard layout/IME’ and select United Kingdom Extended from the list, then click on OK.
Now, from the ‘Default input language’ drop-down list at the top, select the UK option, and click on OK. Follow any prompts that appear. Click on OK to close the dialogue box.
