What does scroll lock do on a computer

Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 1 month ago. Active 3 years, 3 months ago. Viewed k times. The Scroll Lock key is useless in the modern day, and some higher-end keyboards don't even have it: Same can be said for the Pause and Break keys, but however it pauses the BIOS POST output on many computers, so it's a useful key some older games also use it to pause the game. Improve this question.

AStopher AStopher 1 1 gold badge 7 7 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. Actually, Microsoft Excel at least still uses the scroll lock key. I don't know of any other software that does off the top of my head, but as long as one popular program uses it, it probably won't go away. Rolled back and edited so that pause and break are separate keys; on some keyboards such as my own they are separate keys. The scroll lock key exists so that I can remap it to another keyboard macro :- — tohster.

That toy in the photograph, despite being expensive, is certainly not a high-end keyboard! You might want this , and yes it has a Scroll Lock. The fact that manufacturing processes are expensive to set up does not explain why these keys are on keyboards that were designed in the last few years.

Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. True, however most modern machines don't include floppy drives anymore. I don't recall the last time I saw a floppy drive on a machine. Serial to USB converter and you're good to go Actually, you can't run old DOS programs in Windows. You can't even run bit Windows apps Windows 3. Whereas i. Show 8 more comments. In fact, when you google excel scroll lock , the first thing on the list is Turn off Scroll Lock - Office Support wherein it explains why and how it is still used: Turn off Scroll Lock Usually, when a cell is selected in Microsoft Excel and you press the arrow keys, the selection moves between individual cells.

Wikipedia says: Window scrolling My own Google searches are fruitless trying to find an explanation of what "on occasions" means. The article began with Key Tronic's Soft Touch Code Maverick 9, 5 5 gold badges 30 30 silver badges 58 58 bronze badges. Add a comment. To add a bit of history on the reason behind the scroll lock,quoting this article The Scroll Lock key was meant to lock all scrolling techniques, and is a remnant from the original IBM PC keyboard, though it is not used by most modern-day software.

Mervin Mervin Congrats, your post now forms the Google definition of the scroll lock key. See here! Deprecated, not depreciated. BevanFindlay BevanFindlay 81 1 1 silver badge 1 1 bronze badge.

While basically off-topic, this suggested method for leveraging the ScrollLock key is very insightful and great a UX concept. I recommend you to use this script instead for Unicode characters. This is not an answer, it should instead be a comment. It's rather like the later "Windows" keys that have no standard use outside that OS, but can be redefined by each user. But how is the keys utility for KVM switches any less of answer than the answer talking about how it's still used in Excel?

DLeh DLeh 1, 7 7 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges. Disclaimer: I haven't used XFire in years, they may well have changed their default hotkey for this. Wolf Wolf 11 1 1 bronze badge. OK, so some very niche systems have a use for that key. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue.

Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Up in the corner of your keyboard sits an oft-neglected key with a long history: Scroll Lock. Luckily, you can easily remap Scroll Lock to serve a more useful purpose, or configure it as a shortcut to launch a program on Windows It was intended to toggle a feature for which you could use the arrow keys to move text inside a window instead of the cursor.

Today, the arrow keys function in most programs automatically based on context. As a result, the Scroll Lock feature is rarely used as it was originally intended. However, one prominent program still uses Scroll Lock for its original purpose: Microsoft Excel. If Scroll Lock is disabled, you use the arrow keys to move the cursor between cells.

Some legacy programs also use Scroll Lock, but these are relatively rare scenarios for most people. If you do have the Scroll Lock key and never touch it, though, you can put it to work doing something useful. Remapping means when you press Scroll Lock, instead of activating Scroll Lock, the key will do something else. This way, you can potentially use the Scroll Lock key for many different tasks. You can experiment with various mappings to see which one will be most useful.

Click the Trash icon beside the mapping to remove it. If you dislike PowerToys, you can also remap keys with SharpKeys , although its interface is not quite as user-friendly. Some people keep hotkey-enabled app shortcuts in a special folder for that reason. You never know—with these tweaks, Scroll Lock might become your new favorite key. You might even wonder how you ever lived without it.

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