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Can I change the Default
NumLock Key State?
You sure can!
The NumLock key is a key
that toggles the state of the Numbers
section of the keyboard (you know, the
right-hand side keys duh...) The state
of the NumLock key can be set in three
ways:
-
In the BIOS (not all
computers have that feature in their
BIOS)
-
By Windows (i.e.
Registry setting)
-
By the user (i.e. by
manually pressing the NumLock key)
Although full-sized
keyboards offer good Num keypads, most
laptop and some server keyboards
(especially the IBM ones) do not have
the Num part of the keyboard, and
instead use additional key mappings for
the normal character keys.
Having the NumLock key
turned on will be beneficial for most
full-sized keyboard users, but the
laptop and server users might be annoyed
because they will forget that the
NumLock key is on, and thus whenever
they type something on their small
keyboards, they will get numbers instead
of letters when pressing keys like
u,i,o,p,j,k,l,m and so on.
To control
the state of the NumLock key follow
these steps:
-
Open
Registry Editor.
-
In
Registry Editor, navigate to the
following registry key:
-
Create
the following value (DWORD):
InitialKeyboardIndicators
and give it a value
of 0 (zero) or 2 (two)
Note: As
always, before making changes to
your registry you should always make
sure you have a valid backup. In
cases where you're supposed to
delete or modify keys or values from
the registry it is possible to first
export that key or value(s) to a
.REG file before performing the
changes.
-
Close
Registry Editor and reboot the
computer.
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