Ryan Ternier

This always happens to me too. Thanks for finding out how to turn it off :)

Its probably the Canadian Mutilingual keyboard layout. Ugh. I don't often need to type accents, but when I do, I use alt plus the code.

If you have no French speakers (or typers) you can remove the keyboard layout completely.

From regional settings (regional and language settings) keyboards/change keyboards, you can remove all the keyboard you don't use and leave only the one you need.

I don't think the multilingual keyboard is relevance to English Canadians having the most proper English "accent" ;)

Kudos to you for finding that out. Haven't found another source on the net that says something about this. You might want to post this on a high-traffic site like Yahoo! Answers to let more know this solution. Many thanks again for solving this problem.

Thank you!

I must have rebooted 200 times (to reset my keyboard) before I read your tip.  THANKS!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I was about to reinstall Microsoft office 2007 'cause I couldn't figure out what else to do.  :D

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

I have this problem right now and can not get my keyboard to toggle back no matter how many time I press ctrl + shift keys at the same time. Any help  

I HATE VISTA with a passion

There's a way to turn the setting off all together under control panel (classic view) -> regional and language options -> keyboards and languages -> change keyboards -> advanced key settings and then change Between input languages key sequence from CTRL-Shift to not assigned.

wow - thank you SO much.

I searched everywhere on the web but found nothing helpful until your post!

You're a saviour!

My fingers feel liberated and are doing a happy dance.

cheers!

Thanks so much!! i was about to go beserk. i am using topstyle when i noticed the strange characters. luckily i found out i activated them by pressing ctrl shift.

thanks to gonzo_ja for telling us how to turn it off.

Just like everyone says, thanks so much, this is the only place I found the solution.

THANK YOU! This has been a problem for so long. I used to actually reset my computer to fix it. Windows help had no info, this is the only place I could find it.

You sir, are a genious.

All i can say is, CRTL + Shift wont turn it back, i counted 2 different solutions here and im about to try the 2nd one now. Did anyone make sure these were 100% true before posting?

Thanks, I have a presentation a couple of days and need to turn it off

I too have had the problem with e acute sign when typing apostrophes and question marks only when I'm on Outlook.  When I'm typing on word it works fine, as you can see.

I have tried all those options listed above and it still doesn't work.  

HELP PLEASE!!

thanks

This is retarded, CTRL+SHIFT is a majorly used keyboard shortcut. Why would MS do this, almost as annoying as the old sticky keys thing when you held down shift for too long. Removing the other languaged keyboard layouts leaving you with just the Canadian - US layout fixes this issue.

Thank you. Microsoft really picked a bad shortcut for this and annoyed a lot of people.

annoying is the word - thanks for the solution. I had to press both buttons at the same time (not press-hold-press).

I have done everything that was specified in this post and I am still have the french characters dominating my afternoon.  this absolutely sucks as i have an assignment due tonight...it is only acting up in Office 2007 though...//// see, //// works here!  instead of that e with the accent.

THANK YOU ...This was driving me crazy!!

Finally, someone with an actual answer. Thank you. Some retards suggested copying and pasting the characters I needed from Word.

Jesus...

Thanks, it was really bugging me.

thank you so much for the cool tip (I used to restart the laptop once this happen since 3 months and finally you saved me!)

You guys rock...thanks for saving my sanity!!

Ive tried every suggestion, and I cant get my keyboard to change back! Any help?

Thanks soooo much! I couldn't figure out what I was going wrong! Got it back to normal now!

On my computer, it's the RIGHT side crtl+shift that turns the characters on and off, not the left.  And yeah, I also sometimes have to push it more than once to turn it off again.

Thanks for the advice on how to turn it off completely though -- that's the help I was looking for.  Everytime you want to make multiple selections in Excel, Illustrator, the damn keyboard changes....

Amazing... thanks so much to this thread... I keep accidently changing my keyboard and couldn't find a way to put it back (Ctrl-Shift) worked for me... or to turn it off completely... both solutions in one thread... excellent.  David

Deakra...yeah those people did make sure that it was 100% true before posting...because it actually DOES work.

You're probably doing something wrong.

I just checked it myself and ctrl + shift works perfectly :]

Ryan, I adore you for figuring this out :D

The accents came in handy whenever I was typing french essays, but for english work, it was absolutely no good. So I'm delighted to know how to turn it off and on. Thanks much!

I have been trying to figure this out for the last 3 months since I started using Vista... I had resorted to opening up notepad and typing the characers in there and copy/pasting them into my application. Or rebooting. I could never nail down exactly what I did to cause it to go into "wierd" mode.

Thanks!!

Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure out why this was happening and now I know why and how I can reverse it. It's especially annoying when you're typing in Word and suddenly it changes. Now I don't have restart it.

Thanks!

Thank you so much for posting this!! I have been freaking out trying to get back to English- I HATE VISTA! I contacted Microsoft to try & get a resolution & they said they would charge me $92.00 to tell me how to switch the characters back! of course they only told me this after I had bounced from person to person to person.... for 45 minutes.. I understand my warranty expired 1 month ago but just to tell me how to get back to english for 92.00 is insane!

What an annoying problem! CTRL+SHIFT didn't work for mine either... I followed the instructions above from gonzo_ja

(There's a way to turn the setting off all together under control panel (classic view) -> regional and language options -> keyboards and languages -> change keyboards -> advanced key settings and then change Between input languages key sequence from CTRL-Shift to not assigned.)

It still wasn't working, so when I went back to "Advanced Key Settings" and saw the list where it stated "To English Canada - US" I clicked on that and clicked "Change Key Sequence"... It will tell you what the key sequence is... I guess it's a default thing. Mine was "CTRL + 0" and that ended up working.... Hope this helps!

Thanks Stupid things been driving me nuts

thanks i was wondering how it happened so easily

ctrl & shift worked fine for me

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From what I recall, this wasn't only a Vista problem. I had similar issue with XP as well. Thanks for your tip, this is truly a "Canadian" problem!

Over a year I've been dealing with this.  THANK YOU!

I was also having trouble with nothing mentioned here working, I even removed the multi language and canadian (french) keyboards but I was still getting the accented e. I finally went to the "Regional and Language options", "Keyboards and Languages", "change keyboards", "Advance key settings", highlighted "between input languages" then pressed "change key sequence" and changed the "switch input language" to "ctrl + shift" and the "switch keyboard layout" to "not assigned" and then tried to press the ? key and found that it finally worked and I wasn't getting that stupid accented e.

I have had this problem for a very long time. I would close the program and reopen it to reset.  No longer. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I happen to write in French and English. The accent's were always coming on at random. I used to copy and paste the letters into Word. It was a terrible pain. You have saved me loads of time.

This is not just a problem with Vista. I inherited an old laptop from someone else at work with XP on it and it functions the same. Drove me crazy but thanks to your posts, I was only mental for about 3 weeks!

Thank you for your brilliance.