Which OS is this?

I don't run Windows regularly, but on the occasion when I do I use PKL (Portable Keyboard Layout) for Colemak.  I never had much luck with the official Windows installer, which doesn't remap Caps Lock (a registry hack is needed for that).

Besides, running PKL will solve other annoying problems with the Windows keyboard switcher since it changes the layout globaly instead of per-application.

Solution #2: don't run windows :)

I only listen to music and browse the internet and use basic applications. I never play games. Is Linux really better for these things? Anyway, thank you. I downloaded the portable keyboard. It just sucks I have to run it all the time just to get one key back in the right spot.

For me, I think it is better for those things, if you get a light linux distro, like puppy or antix, you will be able to surf, listen to music and do word-processing and small stuff like that without installing anything, a benefit will also be that since you are running a less demanding system your machine will work less, last longer, and it will reduce fan noise, I downclocked the cpu's on my computer, and I run a fairly vanilla puppy variant, another goot thing is that you will have less problems with viruses, (as of yet there have been no bad ones) so you can safely run without anti virus running constantly in the background. But the best thing is that most things work out of the box.

That being said though, if you are comfortable with what you have, and you don't feel like learning new programs, and maybe some new ways of doing things, or think that home is better than a bit of adventure when you are using your computer I don't think anything will beat the If it ain't broken don't fix it principle.

If I sound not so prosletysing that is mostly because not everything is going to be completely as you are used to now, not worse, maybe not better, but differnt, so I don't want you to come and say that you didn't like it and that linux sucks, it doesn't it's just a bit different, I've been running linux only for 6 years now, and I love the simple and stable computing (usually my pc stays on for weeks without getting any slower) but hey, since you are at a colemak forum I don't think that you are against some change ;)

It's pretty safe to say I'm not afraid of change. I'll give Linux a go.

Thanks for the idea of putting it in my startup folder. I hadn't thought of that.

Sorry, that was ignorant of me, I've been thinking about trying out BSD too, since it's even leaner and faster than the linux alternatives that I have been talking about, I just am very comfortable where I am now. But that will probably be the next adventure, by now I'm struggling my way through trying to learn shorthand ;)

There's still one problem. The portable colemak isn't allowing me to use the multilingual alt+gr combinations to type special characters. I type in French and German.

It's such a huge headache. Why did they change it back? It slows down typing by so much. Caps lock is almost entirely useless. Why can't backspace be caps lock and caps lock be backspace? That's the logical option. Then everyone gets what they want.

Is there a way to get all the accents with the portable version?

I guess I'm being difficult...

It's ok guys. I found the original colemak installation file on my gf's laptop. Life is good again. ^_^