Adjust Windows Keyboard Repeat Rate

This tutorial looks at how to slow down the keyboard repeat rate in Microsoft Windows. Many people find that when they press a key they hold it too long, inadvertently creating a long string of the same letter. Microsoft is aware of this problem and added a feature to stop this from happening. If this setting doesn’t help you then you may need to look at enabling the free FilterKeys feature.

Windows 10

Select Settings from your Windows Start menu. Type “Keyboard” into the window that appears and select Typing Settings.

The repeat delay describes how long you need to hold a key down for before it starts repeating. The repeat rate describes how quickly the letter repeats itself once it starts. Experiment with changing these figures to reduce inadvertent keyboard repetition.

Windows XP

Open up the Windows Control Panel by going to Start and selecting Control Panel from the menu.

Windows Key, Arrow Keys (to select Control Panel), Enter

Click on ‘Switch to Classic View’ if necessary

Open up the Keyboard applet by double-clicking on the keyboard icon. Remember if you struggle to double-click then you can single-click on the icon and then press Enter on the keyboard to open it.

Adjusting the repeated delay from short to long will increase the amount of time a key can be held down before it starts repeating.

Once the initial delay has passed, the repeat rate setting determines how fast the repeated letters appear on the screen.