my num lock keeps shutting itself off by itself can i stop this

Anonymous
2010-04-04T15:23:43+00:00

my num lock keeps shutting itself off by itself can i stop this

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Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2010-04-05T10:58:03+00:00

Hi vargatron,

a. Was it working fine earlier?

b. Do you remember making any recent changes to your computer?

Important: This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the windows help article below.

Back up the registry**http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-the-registry**

  1. Go to start and type regedit.exe.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_USERS.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard.
  3. You'll see an entry on the right called InitialKeyboardIndicators. The "usual" default value is 0. Double click on this entry and change the value to 2.
  4. Close registry editor.

Restart the computer. The issue should be fixed by now.

Regards,

Divya R – Microsoft Support.

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73 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-29T02:30:18+00:00

    The solution I found is to download and install a free program called NumLocker 1.0. It's fixed the problem on all my windows 7 machines. (I have not tested it with win 8 or 8.1 but I'm guessing it should work.) You can set it to startup with windows, and it runs in the system tray. It's default behavior is to force the number lock key to STAY locked. Very handy!

    http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/NumLocker.shtml

    Joseph Croft, you deserve a medal! I have just installed and tested it on my Win 8.1 laptop and it works perfectly. My problem was numlock turning off every time the computer woke up from sleep - now it immediately turns back on!

    I went through all the registry mods, turned off fast startup - nothing worked. The strange thing is, numlock didn't turn off after a complete restart!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-05-22T23:03:23+00:00

    I have 2013 and it does the same thing to me.  In fact it just did it to me now as I typed 2013....sigh

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-05-10T16:49:29+00:00

    I see no additional replies or suggestions for Omakler2.  However, I echo his concerns and have several co-workers who are experiencing the same, seemingly random disabling of the Num Lock function.  We all use ThinkPad laptops running Windows 7 Professional and mostly use MS Office programs like Word, Excel and Access. 

    We have turned the Num Lock on in the BIOS and have made the noted Registry edits. However, while these work initially, the Num Lock will deactivate frequently and randomly during our computing experience.  We often use external keyboards and it happens both with and without them (but we primarily notice it when using the number pad on the external keyboards).  We have used various brands of keyboards with the same issue.

    Any help from a MS Technician would be greatly appreciated.  We are all stumped!

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-11-25T23:17:50+00:00

    I have the same problem. I our office, there are 7 Windows 7 computers with Office 2010. People here do a lot of data entries into Access Database. When they enter data, the num lock turns itself off randomly. Sometimes the turn off happens when they switch from one program to another, sometime, it happens when they tab from one field of access database to another field. I following the above instrructions and made the InitialKeyboardIndicators = 2, however, this has no effects.

    These computers used to run Windows XP and had no problem. Since we fresh installed Windows 7 this problem start to happen.

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