Press Shift Key to turn off Caps Lock

In Windows 7 there was a Keyboard tab that let you use the Shift key to turn off Caps Lock, it seems to be missing in Windows 10.

Anyone know how to set this?

Found it!

Control Panel > Clock Language, and Regions > Language > Advanced settings: Change language bar hot keys

Thank you for this answer ‒ I was recently asking myself the same thing, and your post saved me a lot of time!

However, just for the record, if Microsoft should ever decide to remove the ability to set this option through a GUI dialog: the described behavior („To turn off Caps lock“ ⇒ „Press the SHIFT key“) can also be enabled by importing a .REG file with the following contents:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout]
"Attributes"=dword:00010000

Actually, I get asked this quite a lot 🙂

There is, however, a very good reason to prefer this (old) „Typewriter Caps lock“-behavior over the new default, and it's simply this: if „Press the SHIFT key“ (instead of „Press the CAPS LOCK key“) is selected, then the behavior of „Caps lock“ changes from being a „toggle key“ to being a key that can only be used to turn „Caps lock“ on – to turn „Caps lock“ off, one has to press (either) one of the Shift keys.

This can be advantageous for touch typists, who are used to writing long passages of text without looking at the keyboard, and especially so if they're (C/C++) programmers, who may still regularly find themselves typing in variable names of CONSTANTS_IN_UPPERCASE.

That's because, if Caps lock is not a toggle key, it's not necessary to keep track of its current „toggle state“ in your head:

• If I want „Caps lock“ to be on, I can press CAPS as often as I like. If it happened to be enabled already, nothing changes; otherwise, I can be sure it's enabled afterwards.
  
  
• If I want „Caps lock“ to be off, I can simply press SHIFT

This sounds like a hypothetical advantage, but it's not. I work as a programmer, and I often find myself typing in code like the following:

/* Some debugging code; will only be included in debug builds: */
#if defined _DEBUG

Afterwards, I may pause a little, to think about the code line I would like to type in next. Now, if „Caps lock“ is a toggle key, I may (once I decide to continue) be unsure if I actually remembered to turn „Caps lock“ off at the end of ‘_DEBUG’.

Did I? Did I not? – The only way to be sure, is to look.

This is not so, if the „Press the SHIFT key“ behavior is enabled. If unsure, I can just press SHIFT once, be sure of the set state, and merrily continue may way.

That, for me, is the single most important reason to prefer the „Press the SHIFT key“ setting. Also, interestingly, this used to be the default behavior in the old days … at least, until Microsoft decided to ditch Windows 9x in favor of Windows NT¹.

¹ Actually, my memory could be wrong in this regard and I'm not completely sure … maybe someone more knowledgeable in those matters can confirm that the „Caps lock“ default behavior was indeed changed during the switch from Windows 9x to Windows XP?

Microsoft, in their continuing effort to keep writers from writing, has again changed the location of this control in Windows 10 to make it even harder to find. Here's the updated method:

Settings > Time and Language > Language > Spelling, typing & keyboard settings > Advanced keyboard settings > Input language hot keys > Advanced Key Settings > To turn off Caps Lock > Press the SHIFT key

At one time it was necessary to add a second keyboard to make this control visible. I had already added the Dvorak keyboard before I found the caps lock reset control, so I don't know if this is still necessary.

This method is current as of Windows 10 version 10.0.18363.836, but is obviously subject to change. I can't wait for the next Windows update, when Microsoft will probably relocate this control to Kazakhstan.