From: Paul on
jcage(a)lycos.com wrote:
> Something in my registry is keeping my system from seeing my keyboard
> upon bootup of my XPproSP2 machine. Might be a virus or spyware but
> at any rate, it boots fine and allows the mouse to work okay but the
> keyboard isn't acknowledged. When I booted into safemode, the
> keyboard appeared to be working all the way until it was time to enter
> a password to get into Admin (when I started to type the admin
> password, the num lock LED went out and for all intents and purposes,
> the keyboard was dead). Aside from the keyboard not working, the
> system seems to be okay. Also, I have a couple of registries backed up
> on the machine if I can get into Admin and if there's a way to toggle
> back and forth between the two registries.
>
> When I boot into a guest profile and get into device manager, the CD
> and keyboard have that yellow mark as though there's an issue with
> that particular driver. I've tried my normal PS2 keyboard and also a
> USB keyboard - both seem to have the same effect. Anyone know of any
> tricks on something like this? TIA

Maybe when you were working on a CD/DVD problem, you went into
the registry and removed *all* the Upperfilter/Lowerfilter
entries ? If you remove one of those associated with the keyboard,
that might give your symptoms.

A System Restore point may have a copy of the registry, from a few
days ago. The trick is, to be able to use System Restore.

For example, from the Recovery Console, it is possible to copy
a relatively "empty" set of registry files, into the normal
place for them. Then, once you're able to boot the computer
again and have functionality, then use a System Restore point to
restore a relatively full version of the registry (one with
stuff that was installed by your program installations and so on).
System Restore stores copies of the registry, so using a
Restore point before the incident that removed the entry, would
correct things.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

If you don't have System Restore turned on, then fixing it will be
more fun. (It would require knowledge of exactly what was removed.)

If it was malware, then System Restore is likely not going to be
available to fix it (one way or another).

Paul