Windows INSERT key anti-functionality accidentally triggers; how to stop it permanently?

"How to Disable the Insert Key in Windows

Almost anyone who has used a
wordprocessor has accidentally hit the
Insert key and overwritten when they
thought they were editing. This
article describes a simple way to
disable the Insert key on your
keyboard.

Whenever you press a key, a windows
message is created, which contains a
key code that uniquely identifies the
key pressed. Programmes (like
Microsoft Word) look for keypress
messages and take actions based on the
key code in the message. By mapping
the insert key press event to null,
windows send a message containing null
for the key code when the Insert key
is pressed. Programmes receiving the
message, therefore, do not perform the
action associated with an insert key
press event, freeing you from having
to worry about overwriting things
again.


Go to Start → Run → regedit
Go to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard
Layout
Right-click on the right half of the screen and choose New → Binary
Value
Name the new value Scancode Map
Enter 000000000000000002000000000052E000000000
Close regedit
Reboot.
Optional: you can take the Insert key off of your keyboard when
done.


If you do this with Windows7 regedit,
you have to enter the hex value in rows of 8 bytes, like this:

Value Data:
0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0008 02 00 00 00 00 00 52 E0
0010 00 00 00 00

Source

Registry file (.reg) to apply the fix as described above

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
""Scancode Map""=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,52,e0,00,00,00,00

Put the above text into a file with a .reg extension (e.g.: disable-insert.reg), and double click."

"Just figured this one out... Shift+0 on the numeric keypad. I guess I must accidentally tag it while speed typing often enough. Has been throwing me for a long time.

While my addition above may be helpful to some, that wasn't my problem. Anyone stumbling here, if this happens pretty much no matter what app you may be in (i.e., not solely to do with editing in MS Word), save yourself the aggravation of searching to the end of the internet like I have...

Edit:
My personal definitive conclusion is that there is no ""other magic key combo"" for toggling insert overwrite, period. So therefore the only remaining possibility is that in the course of rapid typing, either due to an imperfect/sloppy stroke combo OR a bounce on the keyboard aiding in such, an unexpected encoding is generated that happens to always trigger ins/ovr toggle. I gather from my personal research that it is more likely due to a keyboard/hardware flaw than a software flaw. If it was a software flaw I think we'd see more posting on the net about it.

I am going to finally try the regedit suggestion posted, and simply try to get over it now."

"One of the easiest ways to fix this problem, and also give yourself some other useful functionality, is to remap the insert key using AutoHotkey.

On my Windows machine the number pad does the insert key if the numbers pad is not locked, so I have the following in an AutoHotkey script:

Numpad0:: 0

So if I end up hitting the 0, it is writing out 0 instead of being an insert key, and I don't have to worry about having the numbers lock on or off."

Go to File - Options - Advanced - Use Insert Key to Paste - It will still be used but for a much more practical reason and you will notice when you have pasted something you don't want :-)

For HP laptop, press Fn + ins keys.