ExamWritepad - Windows Logo key issue?

[MrWu]

Hi there..

 

Been a problem that bugged me for 3 exam seasons

 

At random points, during exams, a students keyboard will stop typing, upon further investigations it looks like the machine thinks the Windows Logo key is pressed down, so typing will bring out context menus instead related to Windows + keypress

 

A reboot solves it

 

This happens randomly on Windows 10, Windows 11 machines, they all run ExamWritepad (latest version at the moment) and Impero client, also same brand of HP keyboards for all

 

This issue as far as I know, only happnes with Exam machines and not occur in lessons or teacher's machines

 

I will try and change brand of keyboard to see if maybe its down to faulty keyboards in circulation, and I have also thought about disabling Windows logo key in GPO

 

Anyone has this occur? It might not have anything to do with ExamWritepad though!

 

Cheers!

[robintech]

not had it happen but you can disable the Windows Key in EWP instead of GPO

[Dragnog]

We have actually had the same issue which we thought was presumably Examwritepad doing this, as we have never managed to replicate the issue when Examwritepad is not running. As you said the only way to fix this seems to be a reboot of the machine then it works again as usual. I did contact their support at the time and this is what they said:

 

Having looked into the code the only way to fire the windows key would be to emulate the keypress, which ExamWritePad doesn’t in any of its functions. Therefore I just don’t see who this is being caused by ExamWritePad direct.

 

If you were to set "Disable_WindowsKeys" to 1 then the windows key would never press or popup the start menu, it becomes totally defunct. Ultimately stopping the issue from happening again.

 

I would love to know how this issue your reported was achieved and replicate it so I have something to work with.

 

This is very strange because like I mentioned before there is not function in the codebase to simulate a windows keypress. I did double check this but the best thing to do is to update the version you have when it is released in July and give it a test if you are in over the summer holidays.

 

No other reports of this happening so I literally have nothing to go off without a clear step to replicate, very strange one this is indeed.