Colemak has more common keys with Qwerty than Dvorak (QWAHZXCVBM) so password can be the same, plus some random numbers and you are fine.

For the pain you have endured, that is the price for going against the crowds. Colemak layout is even newer than Dvorak, and Colemak layout is not automatically installed on Windows system.

For the comfort that Colemak provide, I assume that is little nuisance that can be easily fixed.

Not sure about the suggestion of Colemak/Qwerty passwords!

I understand what you are saying as in 'no pain = no gain', but thinking from a Colemak perspective is a tad myopic.  Accessibility gains / improvements in the major OSs and even upstart ones - could benefit all.

It's easy to get used to these little bugs - and shrug them off.  Chatting about the UI quirks in public might highlight the foibles and need for improvement.

I'm sure I've overlooked many other nuisances, a mentioned only a few I experienced last week.  As I said Windows is not my primary OS.  Apple make layout switching pretty straight forward on OSX,  I didn't realise it was such a pain elsewhere.

I agree, pinkyache. It should've been simpler to find your way.

I remembered an old thread that should help a bit with one problem (the logon screen):
https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=494

Don't be stressed out by the first post which describes the ins and outs of locale parameters in the Windows registry (and doesn't even understand all of it!).

Basically, there's a setting
Vista/7: Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Administrative > Copy to reserved accounts
XP: Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Advanced > Apply all settings to the current user account and to the default user profile (if I recall correctly)

This allows you to use the current setup as your logon setup. If you have for instance Colemak installed and set as your default layout and US-en as your secondary layout, you'll be able to select the secondary layout also on logon. Hope that helps!

To go through your wishlist:
* Be able to switch layouts at Boot time (and in the bios - though I can live without this.)
Drawing a blank there, sorry

* Be able to select a language and layout on the login screen.
Answered above, I hope

* Be able to switch language and layouts at any time.
Yes: Activate the desired layouts and switch between them by the language bar/icon or by hotkey (although I don't like to use for instance Shift+Alt as I'll hit that accidentally)

* My chosen language / layout does not effect other users on the system.
Yes: If you install/activate layouts on your user account this doesn't affect other users

* Be able to switch the layout for all apps and windows or individual ones.
I always set my active layout as active for all windows in the Control Panel > Regional and Language Options; that way I won't have to keep track of which window does what. It's easy to change layout when needed I think.

* Have a keyboard shortcut to switch layouts.
Yes, although I don't quite like the options. You can't pick which keys to use but have to choose between just a few options. Maybe the Ctrl+Alt+1 type hotkeys are best.

* Indicate to the user which language and layout I am using.
Yes; the icon in the language bar (which you should have ticked off as showing) indicates the 'locale'. If you have several US layouts you may be tricky and put one of them under a different locale instead so that the icon reflects which layout you're using. Unfortunately, the OSs aren't quite aware of the rich world of layout choosing as such. Actually, that's the same with my Linux here - it just says "USA" or "Nor" and nothing about Colemak or my Wide(Angle) mod.

* Be able to easily load a new keymap from a file or url.
No. You have to edit your keymap with the MSKLC app and compile that, then install it to your system.

Many of the shortcomings in the above points are in my opinion alleviated by using PKL. I set my own switching hotkeys there, load keymaps from relatively understandable layout files, activate and switch on the fly as I wish, and in addition there's a help image and a VERY nifty Extend/Overlay mode!!! All sorts of goodness, plus it's portable.

I just tried this on the missus's laptop running XP with SP3. 

I set up different layouts for each user.  The confusion lays in the option 'select one of the installed languages to use when you start your computer'.  It's not clear what this means - but in practice I think it translates to the default language/layout to use once you've logged in.

At the login screen you don't quite know which layout you are using.  It appeared to change if I switched users.  Perhaps it uses the last setting.  It's all a bit mysterious. 

Not sure about the changes between Windows XP and Vista/7, whether the behaviour is the same.

I am Colemak user and my password is something like ahZzxCVbmQw13579, which can be typed at Qwerty login windows.

While having passwords that are interchangeable between layouts sounds like a good hack, it is just that.

On Linux at the login screen (GDM) - you can select your keymap.  Or at least change it there.  That's not to say that it's possible on the other display managers under Linux.

If there was a selection of user icons that you clicked on rather than typing their usernames, it could automatically load your last layout or preferred session layout for you then to type your password.  That's just a thought, and it should be clear which you are using.  If you had to type your username - you would need to have already selected your preferred layout!  Language and keyboard settings need to be accessible from there.  I get that there is an overhead with adding language support - but I doubt there needs to be any regarding keyboard layouts.

It actually seems to be a bit of pot luck with Windows, it's as if every time I go to set the layout - the interface changes (perhaps it has changed between service packs under XP, or I'm getting confused between the different versions of Windows?)  Either way it's counter intuitive.  Microsoft and other OS's need to really get to grips with this.  Hence my enthusiasm for possible changes in Windows 8.

I can't remember now if my old Apple (OSX 10.4), had the ability to change the keyboard layout at login or not?  I know it was trivial to swap layouts from the desktop (once you set them up you could Command + Space between them.)  I did a brief look up for layout support on the iPad, and supposedly alternative layouts are just a tap away from the onscreen keyboard (perhaps that's after you've set them up.)  I haven't seen this in person though.

I couldn't ever recommend Colemak to my Aunt (my go to usability tester.)  As setting up the layout is not trivial.  I'm sorry, it just isn't.  I couldn't even recommend Dvorak to her on Windows.  Even if I set it up for her, it would be a world of pain whenever she came into contact with another computer.  That's not a slant at Colemak, or the tools that work with it.  I see it rather as a pretty serious flaw in the OS.  I wonder how international users get their head around the same problem (moving between different layouts)?

It would be nice to access other settings too at login time - volume, brightness and network settings for example.

Hey. I didn't quite understand you there but I don't find it unintuitive. XP and 7 are just handling it differently. 7 keeps your layout program-dependent. So if I'm chatting in Skype in Bulgarian and writing in an English forum in Chrome, I can just switch between Skype and Chrome and Windows changes the language accordingly. Once you see it, it's very easy to get used to.

What I was mainly trying to get at with the initial post, is that configuring these settings is somewhat of a dark art!  I'm not saying that switching layout is impossible.  Or that it can't be done.  I'm merely saying it's problematic and esoteric.   When it should be simple and intuitive.

I now have a Thinkpad laptop that I have both Vista and Debain Wheezy/Testing installed.  I've managed to get US Dvorak layout working on windows for my user account.  And I've set it up to be my primary layout - the layout activated after I log in.  I still have the UK layout on the log in screen.  In the help it suggests this is possible to change (though it's still not immediately obvious).  At least it indicates that someone has thought about the problem.

Part issue is that these settings in Windows are buried in the control panel under regional settings (or something like that), I'd expect to find keyboard layouts within the keyboard section of the control panel.

Ideally you would hope that the language and layout settings would be an icon click away.  The control panel on Windows is right mess.  Probably a result of merging previous options into each new incarnation of the OS.

With the latest Debian - it has Gnome 3 and GDM3.  I've lost the ability to change/select my layout at the log in screen, so this feels two steps backwards.  There are some workarounds  for this apparently.  What is a little better is the simplified gnome system settings.  Which is some kind of hybrid of Apple's system preferences and the Windows control panel.  The keyboard layout can be changed under the esoteric Region and Language settings (didn't this used to be under keyboard preferences!?)

Without getting too lost in OS specifics.  I'd like the OS makers to think about this very problem very carefully.  Not necessarily to just copy botched up configurations from their competitors.  Think of possible user scenarios.

Someone's keyboard layout might actually be independent from their spoken and written language.   I wondered at first why you would not want the same layout for every window/application on the system, then  I realised that it's important for those that read and write in multiple  languages.  How about your window manager remember which applications you use with what settings?

@penguin above is a user that suffers as a result of poor configuration options, and I'm sure they are not alone even if they believe they are an edge case.  I once had a tech support job, and the users computer was setup in Italian - I found it really difficult to change simple system settings.  The icons were meaningless by themselves.  At the time what would have been nice would have been the option of a simple method  to swap the system user interface momentarily over to English.

I hope that's a little clearer.