#But gods I was desperate and I need my laptop to be usable... at least for another three months...

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Oh thank Azar, it WORKED!

I have spent approximately the last twenty-four hours fretting over my laptop. When I connected to the Wifi at my new temporary residence, I forgot to mark the connection as metered. Which means it downloaded and installed a Windows update. Which my laptop historically Does Not Do Well with. I don’t know why, they just always mess something up. So I avoid them adamantly.

(I know it’s a security risk. I take measures and I’m well acquainted with cyber attacks. Social engineering doesn’t work on me because I’m even suspicious of legitimate emails/files/downloads from Verified Sources^tm.)

Anyways, this particular update made my laptop’s Volume Up bottom spazz out so badly it would act like it’s being continually pressed, which for some reason would paralyze the track pad and cursor. Couldn’t even right-click.

It made my laptop damn-near unusable.

(tl;dr I figured it out but gods, it was an ordeal.)

Luckily I’m willing to take a risk for my stories and I trust Microsoft’s built-in virus protection much more than I would have a decade ago, because I couldn’t figure out how to disable Just That One Key, but I was able to spend about three hours patiently waiting for the key to stop spazzing (because it was frequent, but intermittent), and quickly disable the keyboard when it stopped. JUST long enough that I could find a program to disable the entire keyboard, because I didn’t trust the ones I found to disable Individual Keys.

(Luckily I’m also patient enough to use point-and-click to type with the on-screen keyboard so I could search the internet for what the hell I could do next... {lP Because as a writer, a blogger who writes affluent tags, and a keyboard-shortcut aficionado, I simply could Not use a computer without keyboard access. Maybe long enough to back up my stories... but then the machine would essentially be a very expensive paperweight to me.)

But then I got desperate when I couldn’t find an “in-house” way to remap (well, disable) the key causing all these problems. A couple of websites I’ve long used and trusted had articles on little lightweight programs you can use. But I was VERY nervous about using KeyTweak to disable it, because 1.) it’s built for XP/Vista/7, and 2.) IT USES THE REGISTRY. For those who don’t know: If you fuck up the registry, you might permanently fuck your computer forever and ever and there won’t be a way to fix it because the registry runs EVERYTHING, including core OS files, mouse clicks, and... to my immense benefit, keyboard strokes.

But KeyTweak worked. Its little 32-bit registry edit seems to have worked. The computer restarted to apply it and seems to be stable. The key is disabled and the trackpad is working. Luckily I don’t mind using the volume slider to adjust the volume instead.

Whew...