no \ when I press the \ key

Lum

\ is a feature of US keyboards, it's in the top right next to the backspace key



And you'll need it when ever entering pathnames in Windows.

debitcardmayhem

You also need it linux if you want to escape the value of certain characters from their meaning in the shell
eg \\ for \ , or \$ for a $ \; for a ; etc some people have never lived outside of the windoze gui world :cool:

JimmyTheWig

NowRetired wrote: »

When I press the \ key below the backspace key I get a # and shift gives a ~.

As others have said I'm sure it's some sort of locale problem.
But, as a workaround, if you hold down Alt and hit 0092 on the numeric keypad you will get a \. Likewise if you hold down Alt and press 0035 on the numeric keypad you will get a #.


Hold on...

NowRetired wrote: »

When I press the \ key below the backspace key

!!!!!! is the \ key doing below the backspace key?
Is it, actually, _not_ an English keyboard but you have it set to English?

malcumms7898

Just a thought. Are you certain that somebody has not played a trick on you by swapping the \| key for the #~ key? On many keyboards you can pull the keys off and move them around. The \| key should be next to Z.

NowRetired

Are you certain that somebody has not played a trick on you by swapping the \| key for the #~ key?

The keyboard is as LUM's picture, but the backspace key is above the \ key not next to it, no keys have been swopped around.

The laptop was given to me because the hard drive was broken, I bought a hard drive from ebay, formatted it and installed Windows XP.

!!!!!! is the \ key doing below the backspace key?

I don't know, perhaps you should ask Dell?

Not all keyboards are the same.

NowRetired

that you don't really need to use

so how do I enter c:\program\windows\I3086\tools\cmd easily?

RobTang

NowRetired wrote: »

The keyboard is as LUM's picture, no keys have been swopped around.

Its not a UK keyboard layout then, you need to set your keyboard to a US one.

spud17

As you were given it, you wouldn't know, but is there a possibility it's a replacement keyboard from.eg. ebay?....

....... and the buyer missed/ignored the 'US' layout.

The larger 'Enter' key is also a feature of 'US' layout.

JimmyTheWig

Google
Dell 600 keyboard
and click on images. Do they look like yours (with the \ in the top right)?

Now google
Dell 600 uk keyboard
and click on images. Do they not look like yours (i.e. \ is in the bottom left)?

I would say the first google returned pictures of US keyboards.


Out of interest, then, what does the keyboard say you should get if you hold down shift and press 3? # or £? Which do you get? Does the keyboard have a £ on it?

Dave_C_2

For a workaround, I was going to suggest using Alt+92 keycode to generate the backslash, but that requires a numeric keypad, which you haven't got. All is not lost, have a look here
http://usefulshortcuts.com/alt-codes/instructions-for-using-alt-Codes.php

Or use the on-screen keyboard:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-xp/help/on-screen-keyboard

Or copy and paste a \ from this thread into a text file on your desktop. then copy and paste from the text file as required.

Dave