Working around a dead keyboard

It's Thursday, so there's a new "LangaList Plus" column posted at WindowsSecrets.Com.

Reader George Molzahn is caught in a Catch-22 situation that turned his PC into the world's largest paperweight:

"I have Vista Home Premium on an Intel-based system. All of a sudden, my PS/2 keyboard stopped working, period. I checked connections, rebooted, etc., but my keyboard still won't work. I figured it had died, so I bought an inexpensive USB keyboard, hooked it up, and it operated just fine — except it was dead during boot-up.

"As the boot proceeded and Vista started, the keyboard came alive and worked great. Hmmmm …. I got a USB-PS/2 adapter and plugged the new keyboard into the PS/2 port in the back of the computer and guess what? The keyboard is 'dead,' just like before."

George has two simultaneous problems going on, but they're easily sorted out and 2-minute fix will most likely get his USB keyboard working at boot, just as it should. That's the top item in my column this week.

Also in this column:

• Why won't my PC open the .cda files on a DVD?
  
  
• "Cannot display" Microsoft Outlook inbox; why?
  
  
• Recover a lost Windows key
  

Access to the above content is almost free: You pay only what you think the WindowsSecrets newsletter is worth (there's no set fee--- you decide); whatever you pay that once gets you access to all the paid content, including my columns, for an entire year.

Want to have a question answered in that column? Use the "contact" info at the end of the column to send in questions you might like me to try answering. And you can also rate the content to let me know how I'm doing.

More info: https://windowssecrets.com/

Thanks for your support!