My husband recently bought a notebook and the @ and " keys have been transposed, i.e. when I press Shift+2 I get ", instead of the @ sign. Can this be fixed?

This is a problem that often occurs with keyboards, where the layout is not standardised throughout the world. If you press Shift+2 and get a " instead of a @, then your keyboard is mapped to a UK setting, instead of a US setting.

To change this in Windows XP:

  1. Go to "Start" and click on "Control Panel".
  2. Click on "Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options".
  3. Under "Pick a Control Panel Icon", click on "Regional and Language Options".
  4. Go to the "Languages" tab and click on the "Details" button under the heading "Text services and input languages".
  5. On the "Settings" tab, look under the heading "Installed services" — what you'll probably see is something to the like of "EN" in a block with "English (South Africa)" next to it, a Keyboard icon under it and "United Kingdom" under it. This denotes your default input language and the layout of your keyboard. If your keyboard shows a @ sign on the 2 key, but gives you a " when you press Shift+2, then you've got a US layout keyboard which is mapped to a United Kingdom layout.
  6. First you need to add the right layout and input language before you can remove the old one. So click on "Add".
  7. Two drop-down menus now appear. Under "Input Language" select "English (South Africa)" and under "Keyboard layout/IME" select "United States" (there are a number of United States options so experimentation might be needed to get the correct layout for your keyboard).
  8. Click on "OK".
  9. Now click on the old English input language (the line next to the letters "EN") and click on "Remove". (Windows might tell you that it will only take effect once you've rebooted your computer).
  10. Click on "OK".
  11. Click on "OK" again.
  12. (If you received the message that said you need to reboot, then do so now.)

Please note: if you've got a " sign on your 2 key, then you've got a United Kingdom layout. The same process can be used to change the layout from a US layout to a UK layout by merely selecting "United Kingdom" from the dropdown menu instead of "United States".