Windows 10 Pro - Permanent Flight Mode

DoaM

DD1 lives in Germany. She recently bought a laptop (Dell E5440) which came with Win 10 Pro. She had a problem activating it (the normal process wouldn't work for some reason) so the supplier ended up sending her a Product Key.

She activated Windows and then 10 minutes later found that Flight Mode came on and she's unable to turn it off. (Sometimes she can turn it off but a few minutes later it turns itself back on).

She's Googled for solutions and tried the ones that came up (e.g. link 1, link 2) but to no avail. I've also suggested checking Group Policies but I've not heard back from her yet.

As a last resort (?) I've also suggested resetting Windows (she's not installed anything on it yet and doesn't have data to lose on it).

Anything else I've missed? Any obvious fixes we've not found?

TIA.

Neil_Jones

This can be caused if there is a physical toggle switch for Flight Mode somewhere on the laptop. Or if its a FN+F12 key (or whatever) it may be accidentally activated such as by being fat fingered or not watching what you're typing.

It may be worth updating network and chipset drivers from the dell website if available.

DoaM

She messaged me last night ... she did a Windows reset and that seems to have done the trick. Looks like something wasn't set quite right as she had also tried setting the language to English but it kept resetting to German, but the Windows reset has fixed that too.

Gers

Neil_Jones wrote: »

This can be caused if there is a physical toggle switch for Flight Mode somewhere on the laptop. Or if its a FN+F12 key (or whatever) it may be accidentally activated such as by being fat fingered or not watching what you're typing.

It may be worth updating network and chipset drivers from the dell website if available.

I did the same 'fat fingered' thing recently and couldn't toggle FM off with the dedicated key. I found the FN+F12 option which seems particular to Dell - it worked!

Gers

DoaM wrote: »

she had also tried setting the language to English but it kept resetting to German, but the Windows reset has fixed that too.

There's an option to have another language ready to use - my DM has a little icon which shows either EN or GER (not sure if it's that) and it's as simple as clicking on the icon to change over.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-keyboard-layout-windows-10

Your DD needs to be aware that the keyboards are different with keys aren't always what we are used to here. Z is more prominent, there's keys for umlauts and Eszett or scharfes S in place of the English alphabet.

DoaM

She's aware of the keyboard and is OK using a German one (which the laptop has). She just wanted the regional settings in English as trying to do everything in German is a step too far!

PS - I like my umlauts with cheese and ham.

DoaM

DD1 reported that the problem came back ... then advised that she found a tiny switch on the side of the laptop; flicking that the other way fixed it.

EveryWhere

Nice when people come back with feedback and the solution.