Key repeat rate and delay

What to do

1. Open w0a
2. Go to the Fix page in the left menu
3. Type tus into the search box
4. Press the button on the Key repeat rate and delay card

What the card's answer means

After you press it, the card writes a line underneath. Which line you get decides your next step.

• "Fixed — N setting(s) put back to the Windows default." — this was the broken thing and it has been put back. If the problem continues, see below.
• "Nothing to fix — this was already at the Windows default." — these settings were never changed. Whatever you are seeing has another cause, and pressing this card again will not help.
• "Nothing to fix — this component is not installed on this PC." — the thing this card repairs is not present on this Windows. Your edition may not include it, or it may have been removed earlier.
• "Another repair is running." — only one card runs at a time, because several of them would undo each other's work. Wait for it to finish and press again.

What this card actually does

If a held key repeats too fast, or takes too long to start repeating, restores both values to the Windows defaults: half a second before repeat begins, fastest rate after that. Nothing to do with how long a single press takes to reach the game — this setting only governs a key that is held.

Every repair card writes back the Windows default unconditionally; it does not depend on a backup of w0a's own existing. So it also helps if some other tool was what changed your machine.

The two values it writes:

• HKCU\Control Panel\Keyboard\KeyboardDelay = 1 — the wait before repeat starts (0 = 250 ms, 1 = 500 ms, 3 = 1000 ms).
• HKCU\Control Panel\Keyboard\KeyboardSpeed = 31 — the repeat rate, fastest step.

Both are REG_SZ, that is, text. A tool that writes a DWORD over them makes the values invisible; Windows then falls back to its own internal default and the settings window stops agreeing with the actual behaviour.

What may have changed them: w0a's own Cut the key-repeat delay to the shortest step tweak, the Control Panel keyboard window, accessibility profiles, and some keyboard vendor software.

The setting is read once per session, so you may keep seeing the old behaviour until you sign out and back in.

If it did not help

If the card said it fixed something and the problem is still there, these settings were not the cause. Write to us — tell us which card you ran and what it printed; the two together are what narrows it down.