DOS Box help

[FamousAdventurer77]

I have no idea how the hell this happened.

Yesterday, DOS Box was working perfectly. But when I went to use it just now, suddenly anything I typed only came out as numbers-- no letters, no forward slashes, nada. I closed it out and tried it again, same thing kept happening.

Any idea how to fix this? Will trashing my current version then reinstalling it work?

[Wyz]

This might be the issue:
Do you use different keyboard layouts on your computer? You might check the little keyboard icon usually left to the traybar (lower left of your desktop). Click it and try the options (make sure dosbox is open and in focus). Also try the language setting that is next to that icon.

[FamousAdventurer77]

Keyboard icon?  All that's on the lower left of my desktop is....my shortcut to DVD Decrypter and the Windows 7 icon.

I don't use different language layouts on here (if I ever need an accented letter I just insert a symbol, otherwise this keyboard is designated for American English) so I really have no clue how I killed DOS Box! 

I tried to open another game in ScummVM, and when I tried to type the password in...the same crap happened! Nothing but numbers!

I restarted the computer but that did nothing.

[DoorKnobHandle]

You can change the language setting by hitting shift and alt and the same time, maybe you accidentally hit these keys in a game. Try doing it again and see if that changes anything, if it doesn't then the language setting is not the problem.

[FamousAdventurer77]

i hit Shift + Alt within Dos Box aaaaand....nada.  :'(

Quit out, did it again, still nothing.

I guess I'll uninstall it and re-install it and see if that does anything....

ETA: Uninstalling then reinstalling didn't work.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Hm, so typing in your browser and in text editors and everwhere else works absolutely fine but in the two programs DOSBox and ScummVM it doesn't? That's incredibly weird seeing how these programs don't have very much in common as far as I know. Can you try opening the dos console (from the start menu in windows) and typing in there? Does that work?

[FamousAdventurer77]

I'm using Windows 7 so DOS isn't built-in, if I open the Start menu it says "DOSBox 0.74 (noconsole)".

Typing on the interwebs is working just fine as is Word, Excel, tax software, etc. so I didn't fry the keyboard to my knowledge. But if I hold down Control while in DOSBox, several dingbat characters appear in place. Typing normally, all I get is numbers-- in order yet-- regardless of what keys I'm pressing.

I'll try to type:

mount c

But it comes out as

0123456

Argh I want it to work again!

[Khris]

Usually what happened is NumLock got turned on on a laptop which turns a good chunk of the qwerty part into numbers. Seems to be something else though, just thought I'd mention it.

Check the config file (dosbox.conf), near the end in the [dos] section there's a line "keyboardlayout=..." what does it say and try changing ... to "us" without quotes.

[FamousAdventurer77]

It's definitely not the Num Lock key (desktop machine, too) because I usually have it on all the time and it doesn't affect DOS Box. Turning it on and off did nothing.

There is no conf file in the DOS Box directory. It says in the manual that it can end up elsewhere in Windows 7 but when I searched for it, it didn't turn up. I can't make an internal COM file either because I can't type words in it now...

[Mati256]

If you drop your game's .exe (or dot something) over your DOSBox.exe it should launch the game. This might work as a way around.

[FamousAdventurer77]

Thanks for the tip-- so far, it's working with one game if I just drag and drop. But I might be totally screwed for games that ask for passwords, other user input, etc...then in that case I really need to find the root of the problem, which I think is with the config file....problem is, where is it if it's not in the DOS Box folder and not turning up in the file search?

[LimpingFish]

Install D-Fend Reloaded. It makes using DosBox so much easier. It also creates a virtual hard-drive and automates the installation of a lot of games.

It also gives you direct access to the DosBox config file (just select - Run>Open Dosbox Configuration File - from the menu).

[LUniqueDan]

LimpingFish!!  Tx A LOT for the link.

[FamousAdventurer77]

I'm thinking I somehow fried my keyboard or screwed up my settings, because now non-DOS games requiring user input are screwing up on me-- but miraculously the internet, Word, and pretty much all my work software have evaded it. (It's like some force doesn't want me to play!)

So, any Windows 7 users got advice on how to fix the keyboard internally, unless I did fry this thing completely?

(Luckily this isn't a laptop in which case the keyboard goes = whole CPU gets fried to boot.)

[FamousAdventurer77]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

It was that shitty Constant Guard software that screwed everything up. A random Google search for "keyboard numeric error" turned up several results complaining about this shitstorm, solved by removing it.

So, I'm going to switch to REAL anti-virus software instead. Screw you, Comcast!