The 'insert' button doesn't work...is that normal

On my desktop when I hit the insert button it lets me write over the top of what ever is there. But nothing happens on my laptop when I hit insert. I have tried holding it down, shift-insert, cntl-insert, Fn-insert. Nothing works. Am I missing something here?

 

Try running the keyboard diagnostics and see if the problem is with the key or just a setting in Windows. To run the diags, turn off the system and hold the FN key before restarting. Just continue the diagnostics and run the custom test where you can select the keyboard. Run the on-screen keyboard test where it lets you press each highlighted key and see if the "insert" key responds or not.

 

insert key changes the state of overwrite. do you have an app which shows the state of insert key? word is one. normally "OVR" should be grayed out and when you press INSERT it should be black. See if you can judge if the key is working by an which shows the state.

 

Tried it and the insert key responded. I wonder if it has something to do with Office '07. It would make sense because I hate everything else about it.

 

Try if the problem exists in notepad. If it does, you may try uninstalling the keyboard drivers in safe mode and just restart normally. Windows will just reinstall the keyboard drivers. But if the problem exists only in Office, try running Office diagnostics or repair. In office 2003, repair can be run by clicking help>detect and repair. I'm not pretty familiar how it works in '07.

 

sorry to resurrect a super old post, but I finally found the solution. For all you Office 2007 users, if you want to use the 'insert' button to type over the previous text, you have to choose that option in...

office button
word options
advanced
use insert to over type text

I called dell several times they couldn't figure out the problem, I never thought it was a microsoft thing.