Escape and Tab Keys Stop Working in Virtual PC

I have been getting to know VPC and have been really frustrated that intermittently the TAB and ESCAPE keys will suddenly stop working. Needless to say, that is very annoying when trying to write code w/o the escape key and cannot alt+tab between windows in the VPC instance!

Well, this blog post shows how to fix it in Windows 7.

How To Fix Escape and Tab Keys Not Working In Windows XP under Windows Vista or Windows 7 – Windows Live

Here are the steps for posterity’s sake…

1. Shut down Virtual PC after shutting down any running virtual machines.

2. Open Windows Explorer.

3. Type %AppData% in the address bar and press Enter.

4. Navigate to the path Roaming\Microsoft\Virtual PC under the %AppData% folder.

5. Locate the file Options.xml in the above folder and delete it.

6. Restart Virtual PC and the misbehaving virtual machine and note that the Escape, Tab and other keys are now working.

NB: The issue will occasionally reappear requiring the above process to be repeated. Needless to say, that is irritating.

 

Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter

Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation! » Blog Archive » Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter

I am using Virtual PC instances for development purposes. They are running Windows Server 2008 which isn’t the greatest desktop environment. This tool is helpful to make it a more pleasant place to work!

New Features in .NET 4.0

Microsoft released a set of videos describing the new features of the .NET 4.0 Framework and Visual Studio 2010.

http://www.msdev.com/Directory/SeriesDescription.aspx?CourseId=144

Should be interesting!