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Thread ID: 24513	2002-09-12 15:15:00	MS-DOS mode and M/S Natural Keyboard	Deebee (1184)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
78948	2002-09-12 15:15:00	I want to delete eight copies of index.dat in various folders -- about 7MB -- but my Microsoft Natural Keyboard with Intellitype software doesn't give me the standard keyboard symbols in MS-DOS mode. I have Win95. It works as follows: To get ~ Press | To get # Press \ To get (Top right corner symbol) Press ~ To get " Press @ To get £ Press # To get @ Press " The biggest problem is that I can't figure out how to get a backslash. Any suggestions?	Deebee (1184)
78949	2002-09-12 16:57:00	You have one of two things. Either you have a UK keyboard or you have changed the keyboard settings from US to UK. If you have a UK keyboard - tough. Buy a US one. If you have changed the keyboard settings - change them back. Start Settings Control panel Keyboard icon Input Locales Highlight each language in turn and click Properties and set then Keyboard layout to US. Restart.	Merlin (503)
78950	2002-09-12 20:42:00	> If you have a UK keyboard - tough. Buy a US one. Why? If you can set a US keyboard to act like a UK one, why can't you set a UK keyboard to act like a US one? Mike.	Mike (15)
78951	2002-09-13 04:34:00	The quick way to get around the wrong characters is to avoid them. You haven't got the "\" ... so use the cd command to get into each directory you have a file in, then "del index.dat". (cd .. gets you up one level). I had this problem (only worse) with a mini Linux. It automatically loaded the Portuguese keyboard map. I found the maps at the back of a DOS manual. I suppose you won't have a DOS manual.;-) I think it's an OS setting ... have a look in My Computer/Control Panel/Keyboard.	Graham L (2)
78952	2002-09-13 07:05:00	A UK keyboard has a different number of keys and also different layout in the bottom left. cf the MS Windows 3.11 wfwg manual	Merlin (503)
78953	2002-09-13 08:29:00	Deebee, What happens if you hit ctrl+alt+del and select restart in DOS mode? (I cant remember the exact wording, and cant be bothered rebooting just to find out ) This should give you TRUE dos, as opposed to windoze-dos, which is a kind of simulation that allows dos commands in a window while windoze is still running. Using real DOS will let you attack files that would otherwise still be in use by windoze. I would expect that it will also bypass any keyboard mapping that prevents certain characters from being available.	Chris Wilson (431)
78954	2002-09-13 08:55:00	IF you are not getting the US keyboard when you boot into DOS, then in Win9x there are still the keyboard functions keyb.com and keyboard.sys which allow you to set a country specific keyboard from either autoexec.bat or config.sys, these progs are in c:\windows\command. Though it would seem unlikely for the k/b to have been remapped in DOS. If windows\command has not been set in your path, at the dos prompt type: cd\windows\command [enter] then: keyb us [enter] this will set the keyboard to US characters. The command can be written into autoexec.bat if it works for you. As Merlin has said, the characters you list are the remappings you get when a US keyboard is remapped to a UK one, and if you only get the UK k/b in Windows, then changing it from within Windows should do the trick.	Terry Porritt (14)
78955	2002-09-13 10:53:00	Problem solved! Thanks guys. The keyboard layout was set to "US" in Control Panel, and restarting in DOS mode made no difference. However, everyone's advice (before I saw your post, Terry), inspired me to look at Autoexec.bat, and sure enough, it had the command "keyb uk", so I changed it to "us". Got all the characters back, and was able to reduce three index.dat files from 6,471,680 bytes to 114,688. Interestingly, while in C:\windows\tempor~1, "dir" didn't show \content.ie5, which is where the biggest index.dat resides, yet the command "del c:\windows\tempor~1\content.ie5\index.dat" deleted the file. That particular directory must be invisible to DOS's "dir", and that's why I needed the backslash. Dir doesn't show up the various directories in C:\windows\history either. Anyway, thanks again. Maybe I'll get faster browsing now.	Deebee (1184)
78956	2002-09-13 12:39:00	With almost all DOS commands you can find out parameters by typing "/?" after the command eg "DIR /?" eg Using "DIR /A /P" will show ALL directories/files (including hidden system files) and pause after each screen fill.	HadO (796)
78957	2002-09-13 21:44:00	Thats interesting DeeBee, so it had been changed in DOS after all. The final steps would be now to 'remark' out keyb us in autoexec.bat, as the k/b by default should be US characters. Just type rem in front of keyb us with a space in between. If the keyboard remains US then you could delete the entry all together. Probably your k/b had been sabotaged by a Pom :)	Terry Porritt (14)
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