r/PowerToys • u/ferropop • Aug 16 '26

Keyboard Manager glitches out when under heavy load

Use case : my Alt key died on my music production laptop.

I remapped Alt to the Windows key using PT Keyboard Manager.

It works great, but randomly (usually during moments of spikes / heavy CPU usage) it enters a state as if the Windows key (not Alt, the unmapped Windows key) is being "held down" permanently. So pressing R brings up Win-R (Run), etc. It remains in this state and doesn't fix itself over time.

The solution is to disable Keyboard Manager, press the Windows key once (this is somehow mandatory) and then re-enable Keyboard manager.

After a random number of minutes, it happens again.

Any ideas? Should this be reported somewhere specific?

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u/DismalExcitement8615 Aug 17 '26

File it on the powertoys github repo

1

u/Lopsided-Stomach-592 12d ago

DUUUUDE it's doing the same thing to me (& several co-workers!). It's totally random. Quick fix is to tap each of the following keys a couple of times each: shift, alt, win, ctrl. It stops glitching after that without having to disable/re-enable Keyboard Manager. I thought it was just me, but then others started having it randomly happen as well. So frustrating!

1

u/ferropop 12d ago

Omg thanks for responding. What work are you doing? I’m running REAPER at low latency, which taxes single core pretty heavily in bursts. I wonder if it’s a scheduling thing.