I'm not sure if this is linked to XP, but since it persists beyond my browser, I'll have to assume it does.

Sometimes, seemingly randomly, when I'm typing, my keyboard suddenly changes modes. Instead of typing out letters, the keys activate different statusbar and toolbar menus and windows, like opening the File dropdown and whatnot. When this happens, the scroll on my mouse changes modes too - instead of moving up and down a page, it's like pressing Back and Forward. And I cannot change windows without closing previous ones, because they stay in front.

Being so reliant on a keyboard, this makes my computer practically unusable during a session, and I have to manually turn off the power and reboot to use it again. It even happens with the On-Screen Keyboard. I'm sure I'm not pressing any special/wrong keys - it seems completely random, other than seeming to occur more often in a space of a few hours.

I've virus scanned. Nothing there either. What's wrong?

Hello,

I would have jump on the fact that the keyboard is going bad but since you say it dose it with the on Screen Keyboard its a lil different. What i would like to know is what kind of keyboard is it, Is it one of those special kinds aftermarket or did it come with the computer.
Also as a quick step, have you tried running a new Keyboard and mouse there could be a short somewhere making special keys to come on.
First thing is to try new keyboard and mouse before jumping to software issues.

Let me know what happens
Tech TJ

is this a laptop?? with a touchpad??

try changing it to a Ccompatible mouse in the device manager...

my laptop was doing that alot so i uninstalled the software in the add aremove programs,, then just installed it as PS2 mouse.

loose a lot of cool functions, but no more random screwups.

hope it helps you

It's a laptop. I'm in a bit of a strange situation in regards to hardware.

I've got two Mikomi mice - both wireless, with different recievers. One of these also picks up on a bundled wireless keyboard, but since that stopped working, I haven't used it.

Strangely, though, I'm using the reciever from the lone mouse with the bundled mouse. The lone mouse doesn't work any more (maybe I should avoid Mikomi stuff...). I had both plugged in, and decided to take the bundled reciever out. It still works, but I'm not so sure that it helped.

Stranger still is that this seems to have something to do with my wireless card. I have a wireless USB dongle from a previous failed venture with my old desktop, and I've been using both that and the inbuilt wireless card in the vague hope that if my network flickers, at least one adapter can keep my connection alive. I've stopped turning the card on, and it's coincided with the stopping of the random special keys error. I say coincided because I'm still not convinced that this solved the problem.

This started with the bundled mouse, and so I decided to start up the computer without the mouse plugged in. Twenty minutes into using it, I became so infuriated with my tiny touchpad that I said "Sod it" and plugged it back in to enjoy at least ten minutes of error-free, smooth surfing. Amazingly, no error all night, and there's been no errors this session either.

There's one more thing I'm going to try, and that's turning the wireless card back on to see if it causes the error. For now, though, I seem to have stumbled upon something of a workaround, and so I will regard this as solved. Thank you for your help.

my new laptop did the same things you describe... i'd be sure to disable the touchpad in the DEVICE MANAGER if you are going to use an external mouse. but below is how i solved my issues....

i hate all thee BS software included w/ my laptop's touchpad so un-installed all the tochpad software and drivers and replaced the driver with a GENERIC PS2 COMPATIBLE MOUSE driver and rebooted...

that got rid of all the "random" actions...
mine were caused by the special features of the touchpad's software.

hope this helps you