End Caps
Lock Now

The Caps Lock key is a pox upon modern keyboards. It exists only to be pressed by aCCIDENT HALFWAY THROUGH A SENTENCE UNTIL YOu realise your mistake. We're not all touch-typists. Most of us are looking at the keyboard when we type. Accidentally having Caps Lock engaged is responsible for 67% (approx) of all failed login attempts (the rest being due to booze, sausage-fingers, and amnesia).

Here's how to disable the accursed Caps Lock key on desktop operating systems:

Back to top

Mac

You can disable the caps lock key easily enough for your user account through System Settings:

  1. Open the Apple menu (the Apple icon at the left end of the menu bar)
  2. Click System Preferences
  3. In the system preferences panel, click Keyboard
  4. In the keyboard preferences panel, go to the Keyboard tab
  5. Click Modifier Keys
  6. In the modifier keys panel, change the action for Caps Lock - set it to No Action to completely disable it.

This will take effect immediately - try it out!

Note this this only applies to your own account, so it will not have any effect on the login screen.

To re-enable caps lock, follow the same instruction as above, but in step 6, set the action for Caps Lock back to "Caps Lock".

Credit: Cult of Mac

Back to top

Ubuntu

You need to add a startup command (Run every time the computer boots) that will disable the caps lock key in the keyboard map.

  1. Search for Startup Applications in the dash and open it.
  2. Click Add.
  3. For the name put
    Disable Caps Lock
  4. Under command put
    setxkbmap -option caps:none
  5. Click Save.
  6. Restart your computer to check that it's worked.

To re-enable caps lock, follow the same instruction, but Delete the entry you created.

Credit: Ask Ubuntu

Back to top

Windows

Obviously Windows, being the most popular consumer operating system in the world, has made disabling the caps lock key as easy as clicking a button in the control panel... hahaha, sorry, no, you're going to have to apply a registry patch.

Don't be alarmed though. It's pretty simple:

  1. Click here to download "disable_caps_lock.reg"
  2. Find the download (probably in your "Downloads" folder?) and double-click it
  3. Your computer may prompt you (something along the lines of "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?").
  4. Click Yes.
  5. You will now see a prompt from Regedit, asking if you want to continue importing the file.
  6. Click Yes.
  7. Restart your computer to check that it's worked.

To re-enable caps lock:

  1. Click here to download "enable_caps_lock.reg"
  2. Follow the instructions above from step 2 onwards.

Credit: Microsoft Community

Comments, fixes, suggestions? GitHub (best!) or email