How To Turn Off Sticky Keys Dialog

When my wife made the transition from an electric typewriter to a computer keyboard she carried a habit over that has caused her a small inconvenience which has a simple fix.

First the habit – when My wife is typing on the computer and wants to think she hits the Shift key repeatedly while she looks over the keyboard deciding what to write next. An electric typewrite just cycled from upper case/lower case but do you know what happens when you do that on Windows Vista or Windows 7?

Well you get this window pops up and asks if you want to turn Sticky Keys on.

Let me take a step backwards first and explain what Sticky Keys are. Windows implements several Ease of Access settings to make the operating system accessible to people of all range of abilities to make sure it is easy to use Windows no matter who you are.

Sticky Keys when active allows you to enter multiple key stroke combinations (such as CTRL, ALT, DELETE) one key at a time.

The alert box for turning on Sticky Keys comes up when you hit the SHIFT key five times in a row.  This is simply a shortcut to getting to that dialog so it is easy to turn this feature on and off. 

If you do not need to use Sticky Keys you can access the settings page from this dialog and you will get this screen:

Under Keyboard shortcuts just uncheck the very first dialog box to turn off that keyboard shortcut if you do not need access to Sticky Keys and this little dialog will not bother you again.

This is an automatic step I take when setting up my wife’s computer system otherwise I get that shout out when she hits SHIFT five times!

If you need to turn this back on then just type sticky keys in the Windows Start Menu search box.

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Richard Hay  (3358 Posts)

Richard is the Owner of WindowsObserver.com and has been involved in tech for over 25 years. His first website – AnotherWin95.com – came online in 1995. Back then he used GeoCities Web Hosting for it and what you see here today is the result of the work he has continued on the site since 1995. In January 2010 his community contributions were recognized by Microsoft when he was awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for Windows Desktop Experience. In January 2011 he was renewed as a Microsoft MVP but in a new category called Windows Expert - Consumer and in January 2012 he received the award for the third time.