On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 2:42:04 AM UTC-6, R.Wieser wrote:
Lee,

So the search tool was open and you were typing in the file name
when it started misbehaving?

I'm sorry, I see I was not too clear there. I just typed the filename while
the focus was on the explorer window on the right (containing all the
files). It behaves as a kind of auto-complete (jumping to the first file
matching the first typed char, than on typing the second char to the file
matching that one, and so on).

Ok, I got it now. Thanks. When ever I've tried that or repeated same key presses it moves maybe three times and then it breaks entirely and autocomplete quits working, if indeed we can use that 'taken' name for this function.. Autocomplete for me is suggestions in a drop down box while you needed to see what was under the drop down box most of the time.


To sum up those ramblings, it appears to be a random firing off
of CTRL-TAB. ALT after that goes straight to the tool bar then.
Does that sound feasible to you?

I have no idea if its feasable. But I think its simpler: when you hold ALT
down your keystrokes are regarded as "shortcut keys" and are send to the
toolbar. If the ALT key "sticks" (on the keyboard itself, or being
remembered by the OS as being down) they will (ofcourse) go to the toolbar
too.

Plausible might have been the better word choice there, but yeah I was asking for your thoughts at that point.

But while that works for the ALT key, the problem that I'm having seems to
be related to the SHIFT key (holding ALT down while selecting a file in
explorer does not seem to do anything special).

And that makes me realize that I seem to have (at least) *two* keys that act
funny: SHIFT and ALT ...
Yes, multiple issues seem to be afoot here too.


I suggest you try to find a forum for your make and model of confuser
and see if anyone in there also has your problem

But I did ! :-) I was/am assuming that its a Win98 OS related problem
(probably something in the line of the ALT-TAB not always working properly
when switching to/from a full-screen CLI), so I posted it here.

Noooo.... Not based on OS but your make and model. And then use the search function to whittle away the non-relevant stuff. When searching in a smaller database than this usenet archive you get more relevant hits and if it's a common problem because of the make and model you've just now hit the jackpot and a posted fix or workaround is almost a certainty. We still don't know why this happening mainly to you, it could be your make and model which I still don't know either.

Perhaps someone has such a thing along the lines of a keyboard
initializer, set it to go off when the focus changes every single time
might possibly work.

I did something like it: I found a windows build-in function which informs
you when another program receives focus. I build a small program with which,
when that happens, checks if the shift, control and/or alt keys are (still)
down. If so, it pops up a message telling me so. Now lets see if it
catches the problem situation (I already had it appear when pressing ALT-F4
:-) ) ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

More information on your 'I build a small program' please, sounds very interesting.