This is it. This is the one that drives me off the deep end. I don't know what else the fuck to do.
My roommate has a Republic of Gamers laptop. He's actually had it for several years now. Yesterday he called me saying he couldn't type his password at the login screen - the keyboard wasn't working. I drove home, turned on his computer, turned on the on-screen keyboard and clicked his password in. Once I logged into Windows, his keyboard was working fine. Good deal.
Earlier today he sent me a text saying it wasn't working again. I told him to pull up the on-screen keyboard, click it in, then he'd be good to go. Only he couldn't pull up the keyboard. I came home to take a look, and sure enough, I couldn't click on anything. It took me a minute to notice the blue outline around buttons I was clicking. I turned up his speakers, and lo and behold, narrator was on. Everything I clicked was being spoken out loud, but I couldn't pull up the keyboard. After a restart I got logged in. Tested the keyboard in various programs, seemed good to go. This was all on my lunch break.
I came home from work tonight, and he presented me with a new problem. Escape was pulling up his Windows menu, and the Windows key was doing nothing. Their functions had switched. I opened up a web browser to test his keyboard and... nothing. It was like all the functions of the keys had randomly switched. Nothing would type, some keys would open windows, or execute a search function, or open tabs, but none of them would type. SOOO I restarted.
Bad move.
Back to the login screen and I can't log in because narrator keeps turning on and preventing me from accessing the on-screen keyboard. None of the "disable narrator" shortcuts work. In fact, it will say narrator exited, but it turns narrator on rather than allowing me to pull up the Ease of Access menu when I click that EoA button.
I've tried restarting it.
I've tried "beating the narrator" by quickly moving the cursor to the EoA button.
I've tried a USB keyboard. Same problem of swapped functions
I've tried restarting with no USB devices plugged in at all.
I've tried booting into safe mode. Won't fly.
I have no idea what else the fuck to do. He has pictures of his kids since they were born and I don't want to lose them.