Some developers around me were complaining that every once in a while the keyboard settings would change while programming eclipse. I was not aware, but it turned out I changed my settings years ago to prevent this from happening. Here is the cause:
The default company settings of Windows XP are to have the keyboard layout key shortcuts enabled by default.
These are located in ‘Control Panel’ > ‘Regional and Language Options’ > ‘Languages’ > ‘Details’ > ‘Key Settings’ > ‘Change Key Sequence’
‘CTRL + shift’ or ‘left Alt + shift’ switches between keyboard layouts. For instance between US and Dutch/NL layout. For the Dutch layout, for instance, you need to type quotes (“) followed by a space to display them in the editor. Very unhandy for programmers.
This combination is also used in Eclipse: for instance “shift + ctrl + T” to popup the Type selector.
Disable the microsoft windows key binding by unchecking the designated checkboxes!
