Russian mnemonic keyboard layout is missing letters in Windows 8.

If there is any documentation for the Russian Mnemonic keyboard that comes with Windows 8, I do not know where it is.  I created my own.  I use a US keyboard, so your keyboard may differ somewhat, but here are the mappings and key sequence combinations for my US keyboard (I think I've got them all right):

What kind of an unprofessional answer is that?

There is a serious issue here and Victor is not the only one experiencing the problem. Why are you trying to shut us up? Is it difficult to tell us the solution? Or perhaps your Customer Service is busy with more important stuff? There are only few things that can get me frustrated - unprofessionalism is one of them.

The core of the problem again - especially for you, sir:

1. Custom keyboard layouts made with Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator don't work in Windows 8.
2. Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator itself doesn't work properly in Windows 8.

Thus, at the moment we can neither install our existing keyboard layouts nor create new ones.

Possible Solutions:

1. Either come up with a solution that would allow old custom layouts to work with Windows 8
2. Or compile a new version of Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator that would work properly with Windows 8.

Is this too much to ask for?

Paul,

Another "you missed the point" reply from someone that missed the point.  Perhaps you did not read my post, or in the event that you actually read it, you did not understand it.  I did not create my own Russian mnemonic keyboard layout.  I used the out-of-the-box one that Microsoft ships with Windows 8, the one you say doesn't have all the letters.  If you had read my post, you would recognize that indeed, all 33 letters of the Russian alphabet can be created using the out-of-the-box Microsoft-written Windows 8 mnemonic Russian keyboard.  What Microsoft missed was the documentation (unless I just couldn't find it, which is possible).  I created my own documentation, and put it into a post for anyone that wants to use the canned Microsoft mnemonic Russian keyboard but who don't know how to generate the "missing" letters.

The part you may have missed, perhaps due to missing documentation, was that the letters that you say are not available on the Microsoft-provided Russian mnemonic layout take two sequential letters to generate, not just a single key.  If you look at the chart accompanying my post, you will see the two-letter combinations which generate your "missing" letters of the Russian alphabet.  For example, the English letter c followed by h, or "ch" generates the Russian "ч" which in my view is far more appropriate than assigning some key to that Russian letter and making the touch-typist have to remember where it is located.  Similarly, other "missing" Russian letters can be easily generated using appropriate sequences of English language keys.  "ё" is generated by entering "yo" and "ю" is generated by entering "yu" and so forth.  I frankly have found the Microsoft Windows 8 out-of-the-box Russian mnemonic keyboard to be a thoughtful, effective, and superior Russian mnemonic keyboard, albeit an undocumented one.

If you insist on Microsoft doing things the Apple way, then keep hammering on them to change if you want -- but not because they failed to support the entire Russian alphabet as you suggest, but because you prefer the Apple implementation to the one they implemented.  Windows 8 has a number of shortcomings, and I am not a big Microsoft fan in general, but in this case I think they got something right, though they did fail to document how to use it.  Let's hammer on Microsoft to fix its bugs, its security loopholes, and its botched apps, and maybe its documentation while they're at it, but it is pretty petty to claim they need to "fix" something that isn't broken, except maybe in the minds of people that prefer another way of doing things.

I played around with the Russian keyboard for maybe 20 minutes, figuring out all the key sequences that would generate the "missing" letters, and documented them in my earlier post, for the benefit of anyone that was initially mystified, as I was, as to how to generate them.  I have both Mac and Windows products, but in this case, I actually prefer the Microsoft mnemonic keyboard because I don't have to think about where the letters that don't easily map are found, I just type in the "mnemonic" two-character sequences.  If you prefer Apple, have at it, but I suggest you lay off the "Microsoft needs to fix their keyboard" language.

Yes, we need to ask Microsoft to fix the problem with missing Russian letters (Apple has them! See below):

Widelu used Russian Phonetic (mnemonic) layouts have each and every Russian lette:

• suggested by http://AATSEEL.org
• made by Russian-speaking people all over the world, from Australia to Germany, using MSKLC
• Mac computers do have Russian Phonetic layout and it does have all the letters! -

http://shininghappypeople.net/deljr/osx/index.html - see the image there

Hi Victor,

Thank you for being a part of Windows 8 Family.

I would suggest you to post the same question in MSDN forum for further assistance.

MSDN forum: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/categories

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