This is a Good News, Bad News post. The Good News is summarized by the title of the post. The Bad News is called "Ease of Access."
My wife recently had a strange problem with Microsoft Windows Vista. For no apparent reason and at irregular times, a pop-up window appeared offering various accessibility options, and a synthesized voice read the contents of the screen aloud. This was particularly puzzling since nothing of the sort has happened in the several years she has been using the machine, running the very same copy of Windows Vista the whole time.
We learned this annoyance is an intentional feature of Windows Vista, ironically named Ease of Access. Far from making access "easy," its actual effect is to render the system completely unusable. With the feature active, whenever you type more than three characters into any input field in any program, the Ease of Access pop-up window appears and takes control of all keyboard input. The feature seems to activate and deactivate itself whenever it feels the urge.
I found an inquiry on a Microsoft forum from a customer who was experiencing the same problem: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaappearance/thread/cefa6d08-f32f-4de6-a74f-a6bd53843b52. He writes, "...i have had nothing but trouble with the ease of access randomly opening without provacation, EVEN AT START UP before I have even logged on to my computer, when it is doing that I can almost NOT CONTROL my mouse at all, it keeps pulling my mouse down to the lower left of my screen and opens up!"
A Microsoft engineer with the screen name "Keith" replied, "...Ease of Access is built into the operating system and you will not be able to uninstall it but...you can search the Web for a 3d party program that will disable Ease of Access." He goes on to warn us about the dangers of running programs not published by Microsoft Corporation.
Restoring keyboard control and blessed silence
I found that by unchecking the appropriate checkbox we could silence the annoying synthesized voice, but we were unable to find a way to disable the Ease of Access feature altogether. "Keith" offered the following suggestion to disable the onscreen keyboard:
1. Click the Start Orb on the Desktop
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Ease of Access (Classic View)
4. Select Use the computer without a mouse or keyboard
5. Remove the Checkmark by Use On-Screen Keyboard
6. Select Apply and then close the window
Disabling the Ease of Access button on the logon screen
There is no practical way to remove the Ease of Access feature from Windows, since Microsoft have so cleverly hard-wired the bloody thing into the guts of the OS. There is a free download from Softpedia called Ease of Access Disabler that can render the Ease of Access button on the logon screen inactive. The program is described at http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/Ease-of-Access-disabler.shtml. This will, at least, protect you from people who play pranks by activating Ease of Access while you're away from your desk (yes, that's right: anyone can change the settings, even when the computer is locked - another clever design point by the fine folks at Microsoft), as well as protecting you from accidentally clicking on the button yourself.
Please welcome a new Linux user
My wife is a long-time user of Windows and has resisted change, even through the years when I switched to the Mac and later to Linux. In the past when I've mentioned ease of use and convenient features of other operating systems, she has responded with the sort of friendly pro- and anti-Microsoft banter that many people enjoy. You know the script: "I'm a PC, ha ha ha." So, I figured she simply preferred Windows, and that's fine. It's a personal choice.
As I tinkered with her machine in search of a solution, my wife grew impatient. I told her that I knew she liked Windows, so I wanted to try and fix the problem for her. Exasperated, she said "I don't care if it's Windows or Utoombo or Watonga or whatever. I just want to use my computer!"
Well, I can relate to that.
I had recently installed Wubi on that machine and set up a dual boot with Ubuntu and Vista. I showed her how to log in and where to find her files. She was already using OpenOffice and Firefox, so those programs were familiar. Ubuntu supports our wireless printer and household network out of the box. I showed her how to play audio CDs on Ubuntu. Now she can do everything on Ubuntu she ever did on Vista, with the sole exception of running a client for an online game site that is only available for Windows or OS X. When she wants to play, she takes her chances with Ease of Access popping up. If worse comes to worst, she can download the game client for OS X and use my old MacBook Pro for that activity.
Next: TBD