Keyboard Typing Wrong Symbols After an Update? Fix the Layout

Press Shift + 2 and then Shift + '.

On a US layout you get @ then ". On a UK layout you get" then @. If they are the wrong way round for the keyboard in front of you, the layout is the problem and the rest of this page applies.

If letters are also wrong, or letters produce numbers, this is not your page — seekeyboard typing numbers instead of letters.

Feature updates re-run parts of regional setup. If your system region says one country and your keyboard layout says another — a common situation for anyone who bought hardware abroad, or who works in English on a machine sold in another market — the update resolves the disagreement in favour of the region and adds a matching layout.

Your original layout is usually still installed. It has simply stopped being first in the list, and Windows signs you in with whichever layout is first.

Open Settings, Time & Language,Language & Region. Click the three dots beside your language, chooseLanguage options, and look at the Installed keyboards list.

You will almost certainly find two. Remove the one you do not want with its own three-dot menu rather than dragging it down the list. Reordering is not enough, because the next update can reorder it again; an uninstalled layout cannot be promoted.

Then scroll to Regional format on the previous screen and set it to the country whose keyboard you actually use. That is the setting the update consults, so leaving it wrong guarantees a repeat.

Sign out and back in. A restart is not strictly required but it clears any layout that a running application is still holding.

Open System Settings, Keyboard, thenInput Sources and click Edit. Remove the source you do not use with the minus button.

While you are there, turn off Automatically switch to a document's input source. That setting is the reason a Mac can appear to change layout mid-document with no input from you, which looks identical to an update having broken something.

macOS also keeps a per-user login layout. If the symbols are wrong at the login window but correct once you are signed in, the login window layout is set separately and is worth correcting from the same panel.

With two layouts installed, Win + Space on Windows andCtrl + Space on macOS cycle between them, and both are easy to trigger by accident. Some Windows builds also respond toLeft Alt + Shift.

Removing the second layout solves this permanently. If you genuinely need both, at least disable the hotkey: on Windows the setting is under Language & Region, Typing, Advanced keyboard settings, Input language hot keys.

If the layout is correct and symbols are still wrong, two other update-related causes are worth checking. Keyboard manufacturer software sometimes loses its remapping profile after an update and reverts to a factory layout — reopen the vendor application and reapply the profile.

Separately, if shortcuts rather than characters stopped working, the cause is different again and is covered inwhy keyboard shortcuts stop working after an update.

And if the characters are correct but display as boxes or question marks, that is a font or encoding issue rather than a keyboard one — seesymbols not showing in the browser.

The symbols that move most often, ready to copy:@\#£€