How-To Geek
Disable the Irritating Sticky / Filter Keys Popup Dialogs
Have you ever been doing something, like playing a game, and had that obnoxious Sticky Keys dialog pop up? You answer No and it goes away… and then shows up again the next day. Here’s how to make it go away for good.
In case you aren’t sure what we mean… hit the Shift key five times fast.
Yeah, annoying. It’s a helpful accessibility feature for some people, but it’s really irritating for the rest of us.
Disable Sticky or Filter Keys
If you didn’t click on the “Go to the Ease of Access Center” link, you can simply navigate in Control Panel to the Ease of Access center, and find the link for “Make the keyboard easier to use”.

Once you are there, you’ll want to make sure the boxes for “Turn on Sticky Keys” or “Turn on Filter Keys” are turned off—which simply means the feature isn’t active at the moment, but doesn’t mean the annoying popup will go away.
For that, you’ll have to click on either “Set up Filter Keys” or “Set up Sticky Keys” (or both).

Disable Filter Keys Popup
If you went to the Filter Keys setup screen, remove the checkbox from “Turn on Filter Keys when right SHIFT is pressed for 8 seconds”.

This will completely disable the irritating popup.
Disable Sticky Keys Popup
If you chose the setup for Sticky Keys, uncheck the box for “Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times”.

And that should disable the annoying popup dialogs for either Windows 7 or Vista. Windows XP users will find similar shortcuts under Accessibility in Control Panel.
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Comments (21)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 05/19/09




Excellent, thanks
You totally helped out about how to turn of those infuriating pop up notices about sticky keys, etc. I got to playing around, and now I like the way I am able to move my Mouse around.. There is even this mouse trail efffect which kind of makes me feel like I’m on LSD when I move the mouse around. I definitely like it.
You guys are smart.
Incidentally, that is not my website above. It’s a porn website. But I thought I’d put it there just for Your entertainment sake. Just in case You get bored playing Mario Brothers….
Hey, what is the best way to purchase or download that old DEFENDER game that used to be a quarter operated video arcade game in the early eighties? I’d like to play that game some more on my computer. Used to be my favorite………
Whatever, You can skip that question. I did a search on Your website and found something. It said it woudl be a free download, but then it wound up they wanted me to pay. Not that I mind paying. I just down’t like the misleading…..
Thank You Fellas (Gentlemen, Professors, whatever You may be….)
Sincerely,
John Hoffmann
415-256-9298
Now, if someone could please send me the names and addresses of the genius Microsoft committee members who dreamed up sticky-keys in the first place, I think we can say the issue is pretty-much closed.
THANK YOU! Such simple advice, but it’s so helpful!
nothing has hapened
Muchas gracias… I was going MAD
When I paused to think with a fingertip resting on a key — that blasted thing popped up.
No more… ahhhh.
New keyboard…how to adjust settings on control panel…have to type slow an push keys hard to type…….I need to adjust the settings on computer???? No probem typing before new keyboard which is exactly the same
My check boxes were already unchecked when i went to the options, but the shortcut keys were still active. What seemed to fix it was to check them, hit apply, then uncheck them, and finally hit apply again.
Thank you so much. I spent so long looking through the Microsoft support forums looking for the answer to this, and while I found many people there asking this question, in every instance the MS staff were missing the point.
For me, Windows is a constant battle of “STOP HELPING ME!”
I was doing fine, but the sticky keys were annoying so turned them off and, without warning my computer slowed down so much that for a few hours I thought it had quit working altogether, so against your advise I turned the sticky keys back on and my keyboard was up to speed again. Thanks for your great help!
fell asleep with my laptop next to me , think i pressed smth … and all of the sudden my keyboard was making a clicking sound , every key i was pressing … and the backspace was working one touch per second … so unbelievably annoying…. took me almost 30 minutes of control panel search and forum reading to get were was coming from . your answer helped out , was this ridiculous sticky and filter keys … was a close call , got so annoyed with it i thought i am gonna go straight to the store to get a MAC . witch i will eventually do anyway, but your help gave my Acer another few weeks , i guess :))) To bloody complicated , and user unfriendly …
but thanx a lot !!! such a close call :).. Have a great day
Excelente maniobra, para quitarce un pegoste de encima!
hi frinds I’am moein, are you help me in open filter sites?!(face book)
I am using Windows 7, and after using Windows+L to lock the screen, when I unlock it Sticky Keys is on! I need to cycle through lock-unlock-lock-unlock to disable it again. Any ideas?
ok i think i got mine off
right under “key board shortcut” is “filter options” & it has a lil bullets that say “turn on bounce key” what is that b/c its not letting me uncheck that?
what to i do if shift and control keys doesnt work
i was playing minecraft, i killed someone so i tea-bagged them, and STICKY KEYS WENT ON! thanks
for the advice
yah, that lousy sticky key pop up…my niece Norah really goes bazzirk when I work on her pc and did not gove answer how to click Yes or No..now I;ll get dinner.instead of a cup a coffee…lol
Guys! I have though a problem with Toshiba Satellite A200 Laptop Win7 Ultimate installed and my Keyboard changes to different keys, size, then only uppercase, no numbers but !@#$%^& only…jkluio keys do not work.
Using Fn F10 or F11 tha should change numeric pad to layout keys just makes it more maddaning, eh not to me but the keyboard..it hets upset and writes to me to ‘ stop or else’…
Googled for it and found 17,000 complaned about Toshiba Laptop Keyboards
I know I should recycle it to some schools..it plays games and some low level music..I cant even login to Connect To (my own Router ‘coz the keys not working…letters were OK but 09 did not go
Help either way please
zoli
Just had the sticky keys decided to do its thing at the login prompt… took me like 10 minutes of frustration and a million different password attempts before I rebooted.
Then I was already peeved and struggled for another 10 minutes because I haven’t worked in windows since XP and this whole thing looks different (and uselessly so!)…
Why on earth don’t MS just dump this darn option – does ANYONE in the world actually use it and if so, do we really want it to be an automatically enabled feature??!?!?!?!?!?!?? …make it a manual activation.
ARgh. ok, feel better now. …keyboard probably doesn’t though.