Keyboard layout password problems

Question

Just thought I'd point out that I recently changed my user password, but because apple seem to have changed their keyboard settings lately I was suddenly a bit screwed. I changed my password and included a £ in it. But for some reason shift and 3 makes £ when you are on the user login page, but when you're anywhere else in the system shift and 3 now makes #. This is news to me as I always remember # being alt and 3. But now alt and 3 gives you £, which contradicts what's written directly on the keyboard! If you're gonna change the keyboard layouts apple, please make it systemwide. Because I had to keep force shutting down my computer, because there's now a different keyboard layout for the password when you wake from sleep, than there is when you boot up. Pretty basic stuff, luckily I had come across this before and eventually I suspected this might be the issue, other people might not be so lucky. Please somebody sort it out, it can't possibly be that hard!
I blame twitter

Answer 1

1) Go to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1274 and scroll down to the section "Resetting the original administrator account password." Reset it to something that only uses English characters. (This will be a temporary password; you'll change it to whatever you want later.)
2) Then, boot back up normally, login with the new password, and go to System Preferences. Set the "Show input menu at login" option and change your password to whatever you want.
Let us know if this helps.
-D