Forward slash key stops working

[widdgetz]

I have a Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 laptop, running XP Pro (chipset v1.7). Every once in awhile - I cannot find any repeatable cause - the / key stops printing a / and instead does nothing. The ? still works and I can still make a / by using the Fn + / combination for the Fn-overlayed numeric pad. This is a *nearly* system-wide problem, it is not the common Firefox / bug.

Strangely, I tried setting a shortcut key combination for a random shortcut to Ctrl + Alt + / and it recognized that I had pressed the / key and showed Ctrl + Alt + /, although still the key would not type anywhere.

Also strange is that the / key works properly in the User name and Password boxes if I use Win + L to lock the computer.

I generally notice the problem while running UltraEdit 12 and Firefox 2 although I am rarely *not* running these programs, so it's not necessarily the source.

I am concerned that this might be the sign of a low-level keyboard hook, but I cannot find any information about the problem, nor do I have any detectable malware of any sort on my computer. There are no suspicious processes or services running, either.

Any help is appreciated, I will continue to post more information if I notice any causes, solutions, or quirks.

 

[xwb]

Do you have an alternative keyboard installed? This normally happens on multiple languages. You need to press alt-rightshift or alt-leftshift to cycle around the languages.

Next time it happens, try alt-leftshift and see if it comes back.

Recently had someone who installed Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai keyboards on his system. When the screen saver kicked in, he couldn't get back out because the password was in English and the keyboard was Thai. He had to use Alt-shift to get to the correct language to type the password. The symptoms are similar to yours: some keys work and others don't.

 

[widdgetz]

Good suggestion, but it doesn't seem to work. Also notable is that shortly after posting that message, my *entire* keyboard and touchpad mouse were suddenly disabled. I plugged in my cordless mouse to try to figure out what was going on, but I still couldn't find anything strange running and the keyboard still typed in the Win + L screen but nowhere else.

That had never happened before and I shut off my internet immediately.

That seems a whole lot like a low-level backdoor due to the timing (posting this thread and investigating backdoors) but I have no idea how to confirm, find, or get rid of it.

I'll see if it still happens if I run Firefox with all extensions disabled. Any more ideas?

 

[widdgetz]

I downloaded the Kaspersky anti-virus trial and it instantly found something that Symantec had completely overlooked.

Trojan-Proxy.Win32.Delf.bd

I don't know if this had anything to do with the keyboard problems, but at least it confirmed my suspicions that there was something lurking on the computer.

This is probably related to a recurring mass-mailer infection on the computer in the past few months. I found on several occasions that mswinup.exe, winsvcup.exe, and winupsvc.exe (located in system32) reappeared and began sending emails. I would guess that this or another virus is the driver to all my problems. I'll post follow-up info later.

 

[linney]

Removing adware & spyware
faq608-4650

Try the free version of "Ewido" now called "AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5"

http://www.ewido.net/

Windows Defender

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Try running as many of the scans as will in Safe Mode.