You may run into the problem that it takes a few seconds for the typed letters to appear, the keyboard has stopped working after pressing capital letters or you need to disable the famous filter keys because they are not practical for you. Perhaps the opposite case will occur, in which you need to counteract small typing errors or have shaky hands, situations in which these can help you. Therefore, we will tell you what they are, how to activate, disable them and solve some errors related to them.
What are they
Filter keys are a Windows feature that has been designed for people with shaky hand movements, as they have been created to counteract small typing errors , ignoring brief keystrokes or their repetition in rapid succession. These allow you to bypass brief or repeated key presses, but also reduce the keyboard repeat rate if necessary.
If you have mobility problems or reduced dexterity, or due to an accident you find the need to resort to this Windows accessibility option, you will find that this function, as well as others, makes it easier for you to use the computer to improve your experience in each of your applications and programs.
It should not be confused with other keys in the Windows accessibility options, such as special keys or toggle keys, as their function has nothing to do with them. If you already have this option activated, you can open them by holding Shift on the right side of the keyboard for 8 seconds. But you may not have enabled it, so we will tell you about the different ways to do it step by step to make it much easier for you and, incidentally, you can activate this option.
How to activate them
If you want to use the adhesive keys because they will be very practical or because you need them, we are going to tell you how you should enable them in Windows in order to take advantage of their advantages and configure them according to your specific needs. It is a very interesting Windows keyboard function in some cases, so its configuration will be in its corresponding section.
As in each of the computers the activation can be different, so that it is much easier for you to find your configuration option and activate, we are going to tell you how you can do it in Windows 11, Windows 10 and other versions of the operating system. Thus, you will find the most indicated steps depending on the operating system you have at all times. Once you do, you will see that you can configure it with the options that interest you.
Windows 11
The first thing you have to do is open Settings in Windows 11. Once you have done it, in the displayed window you must go to Accessibility and, later, to Keyboard. This is where you will see an option called Filter Keys or Filter Keys . You just have to check the box that marks Disabled to enable them. Once activated it would already be.
You can also do it from the control panel . You just have to go to him. You will see Accessibility, you must give it and it will take you to the Accessibility Center. When you see it, you can change the login settings, which can be found in the left menu of the screen. Subsequently, you must give an option that says «skip additional keystrokes if a key is pressed quickly – filter keys).
Windows 10
To do it in Windows 10, you have to press the Windows + I shortcut. You must open the Start menu, click on Settings and Accessibility . There you must give to Facilitate the use of the keyboard or Keyboard, and to Use filter keys . Check the option.
You can also click “allow shortcut key to start filter keys” to use this option. In this way, you just have to hold down the right Shift key for 8 seconds to activate them.
Once you activate them, you will see that you will also be able to enable the options to emit a sound when a key is pressed or accepted (or disable this option and show the Filter Keys icon on the taskbar (or not).
If you want to do it from the control panel, it is much easier than it seems. The steps are the following:
- Give Control Panel.
- Accessibility.
- Accessibility center.
- Facilitate the use of the keyboard.
- You will see the option Activate filter keys.
- Press the option so that it is marked.
Other versions
It is also interesting that you know how to make them work from your computer in other, not so recent versions of Windows because it may be the ones you have on your computer. Therefore, we tell you how to do it in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. It is much easier than you think and you can do it in less than a minute.
To do it in Windows 7 , you must go to Start, Control Panel. Search by small icons. Go to Ease of Access Center and Make it Easy to Use the keyboard. Check the option of Activate filter keys and click OK.
In Windows 8 / 8.1 you just have to give the shortcut, Windows + I and go to the Accessibility Center. There you have to click on Facilitate the use of the keyboard, or Keyboard, and Use filter keys. Check the option to enable them.
Disable them
If they are giving you problems that you must solve, such as those that we will mention later, you realize that when you press the shift key a lot, they are activated without your wanting or simply not interested in having them on your Windows computer, we will tell you what the steps are that you must give to disable them.
You can find different possibilities to configure them in Windows 10, 11, 8, 8.1 and 7. We will briefly tell you how to disable them in the different versions of Windows so that you can more easily find the function on your computer, although you will notice that it is very similar upon activation (in steps to follow).
To disable them in Windows 11 you must do the same process as when enabling them. You just have to go to Settings, Accessibility and Keyboard. You will find the Filter Keys option and you must click the Enabled box to deactivate them. Check that it says Disabled and what you want to do would be ready. From the control panel , you can go to Accessibility, Accessibility Center, Change Login Settings and Filter Keys. Deactivate them from there by giving the option.
In Windows 10
To do it in Windows 10, you have to press the Windows + I shortcut, open the Start menu, click Settings and Accessibility. There you must give to Facilitate the use of the keyboard or Keyboard, and toggle Use filter keys. Uncheck the option to disable filter keys .
You can also click “Allow shortcut key to start filter keys” to deactivate this option if it is activated and thus prevent you from doing it inadvertently by pressing the shift key for 8 seconds. In the same way, you can do it from the control panel by following the same steps for activation, but in the end by unchecking the corresponding option.
Other versions
If you want to get rid of this option in Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 you just have to follow the same process as to enable. In all of them you must go to the Accessibility Center, and from giving to Facilitate the Use of the Keyboard or Keyboard you have to click Use filter keys and check that the option is deactivated. Once you have done it you can check it out. If it still won’t go after you have done so, you may need to restart your computer.
If it was activated, just check and it will be deactivated. It is as simple as following these small steps, the same process as in the activation, but deactivating the option, and you will no longer have them on your computer. If you have problems with them, or you think it may be due to that, you should not do it to test if they are solved.
Mistakes
There are several errors that can occur due to having the filter keys activated or that are related to them, so we are going to comment on some of the most important and how they can be solved if they are really due to them. Otherwise, you will have to look for other solutions, although this cause is usually quite frequent.
These keys can cause important problems for you, such as the fact that the keyboard has stopped working, that the backspace key does not work or others, that is why it is so important to know what to do in each case. We are going to mention two of the main problems that are usually related to these keys.
Fix “keyboard doesn’t work after pressing shift”
One of the most frequent errors that usually occur, and with which you may have encountered at this moment, is that your keyboard has been locked and you cannot type on it. If you want to press any key, you will hear a beep from the computer confirming its blocking. It usually happens that it does not work after pressing capital letters.
This is due to the filter keys, an adjustment that if we have activated it is probably the cause that the keyboard does not work, since in any application in which we are if we have pressed the shift key for 8 seconds the keyboard locks and prevents us from continuing typing since it no longer works.
Therefore, if you are in this case, what you should do is simply deactivate them, since you could have activated them inadvertently. You just have to go to the Ease of Access Center and Make it easier to use the keyboard, thus deactivating the filter keys by checking the corresponding option.
Fix backtracking not working
Although there are several reasons why this failure can occur, one of the main solutions and configurations to pay attention to is the filter keys and the sticky keys , functions that should be turned off to see if they already he. If these features are enabled, you might have the problem that the backspace key does not work. To solve this problem, you just have to disable them and verify that it really is this. If not, you can recover them if you are interested and look for other solutions to this error.
Other solutions to this problem are to reinstall the keyboard drivers, keep Windows up-to-date, test the keyboard on another computer, scan with antivirus and antimalware, disable fast startup, or repair computer problems, as they could not be the cause of the problem. , but it does not hurt to try it before anything else to rule it out.
