Eclipse is printing the wrong characters in the text editor

Question

I have a strange problem with Eclipse (Helios). After a few hours of working some of my keyboard keys start printing different characters in the text editor window.

For example:

• SHIFT+2 normally prints " but actually prints @
• # normally prints # but actually prints /

It feels like it changes the keyboard locale from UK to US, however I don't change any settings. I am mainly using Eclipse for Android development. No other programs are affected. Any ideas on how to fix, or even what could cause such a problem?

Answer 1

I've hit something similar before: Windows has this evil key-shortcut enabled by default, that changes between installed locales when you press left ALT + left Shift, which is needed in many Eclipse-shortcuts. Check your keyboard -settings (or something alike) under control panel, I don't have a Windows-machine to check where you could disable this with right now.

Answer 2

To switch off the switch between input languages behaviour (as described by @esaj) goto:

Control Panel->Region and Language->Keyboards and Languages->Change keyboards->Advanced Key Settings->Highlight Between input languages->Change Key Sequence->Change to Not Assigned.

Jeez, what a lot of clicks!