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I am using a German keyboard with US, International layout. At the beginning, when I start my PC, all umlaut combinations for ä (ALT GR+q), ü (ALT GR+z) and ö (ALT GR+p) are working perfectly fine.

But after a while (no specific point, just random) only the combination for ö stops working, I just can't use it anymore. I don't even know how to start researching this one.

However, ALT GR+SHIFT+p for Ö works like intended.

This is getting annoying for me, since the German language requires to use an ö quite often.

Does anybody know how to fix or research this?

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  • In windows 7 there are 2 German keyboard layouts (Luxembourg & Liechtenstein...I don't know the difference...), have you tried using the other layout?
    – Ben Plont
    Apr 30, 2013 at 23:50
  • @Ben Thanks for your reply. I am using US International layout because it's much more easier for special characters used in programming. The German layouts won't cut it.
    – dan-lee
    May 1, 2013 at 8:36
  • Maybe you are in caps lock somehow. Aug 18, 2015 at 17:39
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    If you're using the US-International layout, you should be able to access ä, ö, and ü using the 'dead-key' mechanism - just type "a for ä, "o for ö, and "u for ü. No AltGr necessary. Sep 6, 2019 at 11:25

2 Answers 2

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I had the exact same problem where (only!) the AltGr+p, AltGr+q and AltGr+y combinations would stop working for no apparent reason. Turns out I had two EN variants installed ("English (USA, International)" and "US") and some kind of magic switched me to "US" which is similar but just doesn't have the umlauts. Using the "language bar" [1] to switch back to Intl. is all it takes to get the umlauts back.

This doesn't completely explain everything for me though. The weird thing is that whenever the combinations would stop working, they would only stop working in the application I was currently using. I could then either switch back to the international layout as described above or restart that application which would also turn the international layout back on.

[1] Apparently I'm not reputable enough to post a helpful screenshot of the variant selection dialogue. Oh well...

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Check to see if you can open the start menu, if you can't.

Restart your explorer.exe process and see if that works.

It just worked for me, after the the "á" shortcut of "'a" stopped working.

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  • I suspect that, if the OP had lost access to the Start Menu, he would have said so.  Moving on, what is your answer?  Is “restart your explorer.exe process” your answer?  If so, you could make this a better answer by explaining how to do that (and, ideally, explaining why this technique might work).  If that’s not what you are offering as your answer, you need to edit your post to say what you want it to say. Jul 5, 2017 at 0:29

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