Keyboard shortcuts are designed to help users open various necessary applications just by touching two or three keys at once. But, a handful of users have raised an issue in the community that random applications are popping up whenever they are trying to press a key from their keyboard. This is a very critical problem and upon further investigation, we have found some potential reasons behind this issue. Try these workarounds to find a quick solution.
Workarounds
1. Inspect your keyboard. If you are using an old, dust-ridden keyboard, the keys can behave erratically and lead to this issue. You should clean it with a cloth or compressed air.
2. There is another potential problem that you may neglect. Sometimes, the jewelry on your wrist or fingers can ghost some key presses.
3. There are some keyboard shortcuts that you should try beforehand –
- Windows key+Alt
- Windows key+Shift+ Spacebar
- Windows key+D
- Windows key+Fn
- Alt+Tab
These shortcuts can provide a temporary solution to the problem.
Fix 1 – Try pressing Windows key multiple time very fast
This trick worked for most users. Try pressing your Windows key located on your keyboard as fast as you can, almost more than 20 times per second speed. Now, after that, see whether it fixes your issue.
Fix 2 – Run the keyboard troubleshooter
You can run the keyboard troubleshooter to check and fix the issue.
1. At first, right-click the Windows icon and tap “Settings“.
2. When the Settings utility opens up, tap on the first option on the left-pane “System“.
3. Then, on the right-hand side, scroll a little bit and tap “Troubleshoot” to troubleshoot the keyboard issues.
4. Now, click on “Other troubleshooters“. This opens up the complete list of troubleshooters on your screen.
5. Next, go down through the list until you see the “Keyboard” troubleshooter.
6. After that, click on “Run” to run the troubleshooter.
Now, just follow the steps of the troubleshooter on your screen as they appear and let Windows detect the actual problem with the keyboard and fix it.
Once the problem is fixed, test the keyboard by hitting a few random keys (together and separately).
If the apps are still opening up, try disabling the sticky keys.
Fix 3 – Disable Sticky keys and Filter Keys
You can disable the Sticky keys and Filter keys to sort out the issue.
1. Open the Settings page.
2. Then, click on the “Accessibility” settings to access it.
3. After that, click on the “Keyboard” settings on the right-hand pane.
4. Here, on the right-hand side of the screen, make sure to turn the “Sticky Keys” and “Filter Keys” settings “Off“.
5. Once you have done that, click on the arrow sign beside the “Sticky Keys” to explore it.
6. Now, on the right-hand pane, you can see various options associated with Sticky Keys.
7. So, turn those settings “Off” one by one.
After this, close the Settings page.
Now, press some keys and check whether it opens up any random applications or not.
Fix 4 – Check for some stuck keys
Using the On-screen keyboard it is quite easy to check for any stuck keys.
1. At first, right-click on the Windows icon on your taskbar.
2. Then, click on “Settings” to open it up.
3. Next, tap on the “Accessibility” on the left-hand pane.
4. You may find various accessibility features on the right-hand pane. Click “Keyboard” to access it.
5. Now, you can turn ON the “On-screen keyboard“.
As soon as you have turned ON the On-screen keyboard (OSK), a full virtual keyboard will open up on your screen.
Now, check whether you can see some keys that appear to be stuck on the OSK. The stuck keys will appear in different color.
If that’s the case, try to clear those stuck keys manually. Once the keys appear to be normal on the OSK screen, the problem is solved.
Fix 5 – Use the registry tweak
You can disable a particular Windows feature and get rid of this problem.
Step 1 – Open the OSK
You have to open the On-screen keyboard first. If you have opened it already, you can skip these steps.
1. Open the Settings window.
2. Once you have opened it up, tap “Accessibility” on the left side and tap “Keyboard” on the right side of the page.
3. Now, just turn the “On-screen keyboard” option “On“.
Now, as you have opened the On-screen keyboard, go to the next step.
Step 2 – Edit the registry
1. You have to open the Registry Editor. Click on the search box and use the On-screen keyboard to type “regedit“.
2. When you see the “Registry Editor” in the search results, tap on it.
Warning – Registry Editor keeps the record of the registries on your computer. So, before you do anything else you should make a registry backup beforehand. You can do this the following way–
a. After opening the Registry Editor screen up, tap on “File” from the menu bar.
b. Then tap “Export” to create a new registry backup on your system.
Now, choose a location, name the backup using the On-screen keyboard and save it there.
3. After that, reach the location of WindowsInkWorkspace –
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\
4. Now, on the left-hand side, right-click on the “Microsoft” key and click “New>” and “Key” to create a new key.
5. Name this key as “WindowsInkWorkspace“.
6. Make sure that you have selected this key. Now, go to the right-hand pane.
7. Right-click on the space and tap “New>” and click “DWORD (32-bit) Value“.
8. Next, just name this value as “AllowWindowsInkWorkspace“.
9. Double-tap this new value so that you can modify it.
10. Set the ‘Value data:’ box to “0“.
11. After that, click “OK“.
This way once you are done, close the Registry Editor window.
Now, restart the system so that this change can take effect.
Fix 6 – Uninstall the keyboard driver and reinstall
You should try uninstalling the keyboard and reinstalling it.
1. Just right-tap the Windows icon on your taskbar.
2. Once the context menu opens up, click “Device Manager“.
3. Coming to the Device Manager page, expand the “Keyboards” section to view the keyboard drivers.
4. Now, right-click on the problematic keyboard driver and click “Uninstall device“.
5. Next, tap “Uninstall” to uninstall the keyboard driver.
This uninstalls the keyboard driver from your system.
Now, close the Device Manager page using your mouse. Once you are back on the Desktop, restart your computer.
While Windows is restarting, it detects the missing keyboard driver and installs the primary keyboard driver.
Once you are back, try pressing a key.
Fix 7 – Uninstall Hotkey softwares
Hotkey softwares and keyboard tweakers (such as Keyman, KeyLemon, etc. ) are designed to open applications by pressing a few keys. But, sometimes this may lead to errors.
1. At first, press the Win key+R keys together.
2. Next, write this and click “OK“.
appwiz.cpl
3. This will lead you to the Programs & Features page, which consists of all the applications installed on your computer.
4. So, look for any apps that you have installed to tweak the keys. Right-click that app and click “Uninstall“.
Now, follow the on-screen steps and completely uninstall the app.
Usually, these types of apps require a system restart. So, restarting the system should complete the uninstallation.
Fix 8 – Rollback the driver
If your keyboard has received an update recently, you should roll back the mouse driver update.
1. At first, press the Windows key+R keys together.
2. Then, type “devmgmt.msc” and hit Enter.
3. Once the Device Manager screen opens up, expand the “Keyboard” again.
4. Next, just right-tap the keyboard and tap “Properties“.
5. Now, go to the “Driver” tab.
6. Here, click on “Roll Back Driver“.
Let Windows roll back the keyboard driver. In this process, you’ll be asked to restart your computer.
Restart the system.
Once the current update is rolled back, the problem should be gone.