Disabling caps lock?

March 2, 2005 9:22 AM

How to require Caps Lock to be held down for a few seconds before activating?

I hate caps lock. It single-handedly reduces my productivity about 30%. I hit it, I'd say, about 1 out of every 10 times I have to type an "a". Then I have to spend time retyping whatever it is I typed in caps. Ideally, I'd like a feature where you have to hold it down for a few seconds before it activates or, barring that, disable it completely. I'm using WinXP on a (sager) laptop, incidentally. ThANKS.

posted by BigPicnic to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Disable Caps Lock
posted by riffola at 9:28 AM on March 2, 2005

Another solution might be to get a keyboard where the Caps Lock key is only partially protruding. I'm typing on one right now - the key is full width, but only the left part comes up to "key level", creating a cleft between the Caps Lock and "A" (or rather, "a" ;) ) keys. Viewed from the side, it looks like this:

__
    \_

(I pray to the Gods of ASCII that this works)

I'm a clumsy typer myself, but this reaLLY HELPS FOR ME. Oops. :)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:41 AM on March 2, 2005

As far as disabling it completely goes, grab a flathead screwdriver and pry out the key. It should be possible to do this without damaging anything (I disclaim any responsibility though :-) and you can just pop it back in. You could even still use Caps Lock by sticking your finger in the little hole and pressing on the little stub that's left.
posted by winston at 10:46 AM on March 2, 2005

doh. I missed riffola's post
posted by winston at 10:47 AM on March 2, 2005

Awesome, thanks everyone.
posted by BigPicnic at 11:05 AM on March 2, 2005

If you don't want to disable Caps Lock completely, there's also Caps Beep (PC and Mac).
posted by arielmeadow at 12:30 PM on March 2, 2005

I popped off my caps lock key, and carefully placed a drop of crazy glue on the caps lock key stem, waited 5 minutes and replaced the key cap.
Problem solved for the most uselessly annoying key on a modern keyboard.
posted by Fupped Duck at 12:41 PM on March 2, 2005

Also, consider mapping the Ctrl function to caps lock. That way you get some use out of it.

The orginal ctrl setup gives me wrist pain when I have to ctrl-v paste a lot. On the PC this is accomplished via the registry.

I was about to link to the same page as riffola.
posted by BleachBypass at 3:07 PM on March 10, 2005