Thread: How to reinstalled windows XP

Following some unrelated problems, I reins ailed Windows XP from scratch on my computer. I have now found that there are certain keys that do not work including the pound and @ symbols. Nothing has changed as far as I can make out and I am at a loss as to what to do.

It sounds like the keyboard was set to an American Layout during the installation of Windows XP. Windows defaults to this setting is not told otherwise. Left-click on the Start button and than on Control Panel. Click on 'Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options' and then on the Regional and Language Options icon. Click on the Languages tab and then on Details.

Click on the Add button and select English (United Kingdom) from the top dropdown menu. Make sure that there is a tick in the box labelled 'Keyboard layout/IME' and select United Kingdom in the menu below. Click on OK to save the changes.

To avoid further confusion it is a good idea to remove the American keyboard setting altogether. Before doing this make sure that there are no passwords set up using keys other than letters and numbers in case the characters move around the keyboard. Left-click on the United States entry and then on the Remove button. A restart may be required to complete the change. As this is not a critical change to the computer you can choose not to restart and let the setting change when the computer is shut down.