Disable the alt key?

Hi everyone,
As my name suggests, I am a student who is not a techie so please excuse me if I make any mistakes, and I would like to mention that any kind of re - coding would be useless because I am hopeless
with computers.
I recently had a friend come over, we are working on a school project together. I'd gone to get us some drinks and I came back upstairs and he was mucking about with the keys on my laptop. A few minutes later I tried to go into bookmarks (on Mozilla Firefox)
and the bars weren't there (file, edit, view, history, bookmarks, tools, help) and he'd told me to press alt. I did and they re - appeared. Phew. But when I click off anywhere on the screen, the bars disappear
yet again. It wasn't like that before, and yes, I am certainly sure. Now I have to press the ALT key every time I want to use any of the bars; and while it doesn't render my laptop useless, it is rather annoying.
I am using Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo G505.
P.S. Sorry if I chose the wrong forum, as I say, I have no understanding of most of the forums' meanings & what they're for.
Hope someone can help,
Thanks for reading.

You posted to the VB Developer's forum - definitely not the right place.
It sounds like the problem is related to Firefox options, so you might try a Firefox forum. If the problem is occurring in every program (not just Firefox) then it may be a Windows8 Setting and you could visit a Windows 8 forum. Either way, it
definitely won't be any of the forums here at MSDN.
Sorry about that; moving this to off-topic.
Reed Kimble - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"

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you can do it system preferences->keyboard and mouse->keyboard->modifier keys. set "option" to no action. however, option is really a pretty useful key so you might consider trying to fix you keyboard.

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I wonder if the reason why it doesn't work on some computers has to do with that the ALT key is also used differently (which might depend on the operating system)? Pressing the ALT key and clicking the mouse Zooms In a picture by keeping the point in place and only moving all the other points
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Ok, I did apply KeyBindings. Since the AnanyaCurves class extends JFrame, I couldn't apply KeyBindings there, but I could apply KeyBindings to my CurveCanvas class, which extends JPanel, which extends JComponent. However I still have my first two problems:
1) After pressing the ALT key, clicking the mouse doesn't get recognized. You never reach the mousePressed method, where it's supposed to exit the program.
2) After opening a menu, such as the Nothing menu by pressing ALT and N, pressing a key which is not an accelerator key of a menu doesn't get recognized, such as pressing the E key. You never reach the actionPerformed method of the exitF action, where it's supposed to exit the program.
Here is my SSCCE with the KeyBindings:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.lang.reflect.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.plaf.*;
public class AnanyaCurves extends JFrame
CurveCanvas canvas;
JMenuBar menuBar;
Command quitCmd;
JMenu fileMenu, nothingMenu;
JMenuItem quitItem, nothingItem;
boolean alt;
public AnanyaCurves(Dimension windowSize)
    Font boldFont = new Font("Verdana", Font.BOLD, 12);
    Font plainFont = new Font("Verdana", Font.PLAIN, 12);
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    try
      UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getCrossPlatformLookAndFeelClassName());
      SwingUtilities.updateComponentTreeUI(this);
    catch(Exception e)
    UIManager.put("MenuItem.acceleratorFont", new FontUIResource(UIManager.getFont("MenuItem.acceleratorFont").decode("Verdana-PLAIN-12")));
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    enableEvents(AWTEvent.WINDOW_EVENT_MASK);
    setTitle("Ananya Curves");
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    canvas = new CurveCanvas(docSize);
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    setJMenuBar(menuBar);
    fileMenu = new JMenu("File");
    fileMenu.setMnemonic('F');
    fileMenu.setFont(boldFont);
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    quitCmd.putValue(Action.NAME, "Quit");
    quitItem = new JMenuItem(quitCmd);
    quitItem.setFont(plainFont);
    fileMenu.add(quitItem);
    menuBar.add(fileMenu);
    //fileMenu.setVisible(false);
    /*JMenuBar hiddenMenuBar = new JMenuBar();
    hiddenMenuBar.add(fileMenu);
    getContentPane().add(hiddenMenuBar, BorderLayout.CENTER);
    getContentPane().add(new JPanel(), BorderLayout.CENTER);*/
    nothingMenu = new JMenu("Nothing");
    nothingMenu.setMnemonic('N');
    nothingMenu.setFont(boldFont);
    nothingItem = new JMenuItem("NoAction");
    nothingItem.setFont(plainFont);
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    addMouseListener(new MouseAdaption());
    addKeyListener(new KeyAdaption());
public static void main(String[] args)
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    ananyaCurves.setBounds(0, 0, windowSize.width, windowSize.height);
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public void exit()
    this.dispose();
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class MouseAdaption extends MouseAdapter
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      if (AnanyaCurves.this.alt == true)
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class KeyAdaption extends KeyAdapter
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent event)
      /*int keyCode = event.getKeyCode();
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        AnanyaCurves.this.alt = true;
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    public void keyReleased(KeyEvent event)
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class Basics extends java.lang.Object
public static AnanyaCurves ananyaCurves;
public Basics()
class Command extends AbstractAction
String name; // the command name (not the menu item string)
String accelerator;
public Command(String name, String accelerator)
    super();
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public void quit()
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public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionEvent)
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      f.invoke(this, (Object[])null);
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    catch (InvocationTargetException e)
    catch (IllegalAccessException e)
class CurveCanvas extends JPanel
public CurveCanvas(Dimension docSize)
    super();
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      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
        Basics.ananyaCurves.alt = true;
    Action exitF = new AbstractAction()
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
        Basics.ananyaCurves.exit();
    this.getInputMap(WHEN_IN_FOCUSED_WINDOW).put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("ALT"), "alt");
    this.getActionMap().put("alt", altF);
    this.getInputMap(WHEN_IN_FOCUSED_WINDOW).put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("E"), "exit");
    this.getActionMap().put("exit", exitF);
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I will appreciate your help very much! Thanks for your time!

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Hi N7Daniel,
Welcome to the HP Support Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience! To help you get the most out of the HP Forums I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More.
I see that you are having some problems accessing your BIOS. F10 doesn't work with Windows 8. If you scroll down in your own link it mentions that to access the BIOS you need to go to your Advanced Options and then select Troubleshooting and then the UEFI Firmware Settings. That will bring you to the BIOS. This is all under Accessing UEFI BIOS section of your link. There you can Disable the Function Keys.
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Click the “Kudos Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
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Disable the alt key?

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