I'm very familiar with many of the ALT+xxx number codes for entering ASCII characters in text. such as "©" "®" "°" etc. (copied from Character map) But lately my copy of Windows 7 Pro won't allow me to enter anything by typing ALT+132 for instance.

I've tried everything to get this functionality back as I have a few sites that I use these characters as passwords and it's VERY difficult to enter these without this function.

I've verified that both my ALT key work as does my number pad. The PC in question is an older Dell Optiplex PC. This is happening across all applications from wordpad to Firefox, Chrome and IE. When I press and hold ALT and type a number, NOTHING happens.

Help me Yahoo! Answers, you're my only hope!

Please please please, can anyone help?