Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio keyboard tip: disable automatic keyboard layout switching when you press Left Alt+Shift

I'm mainly working with two languages and keyboard layouts, the U.S. English and my native Finnish. Windows 8 allows an easy way to switch between these layouts (or any other combination of layouts, for that matter): the Win+Space keyboard shortcut.

However, because of historical reasons, you can also use the older keyboard shortcut of Left Alt+Shift to switch your keyboard layout. Although this is a fine combination, I find it interferes with a common Visual Studio shortcut: Alt+Shift+C for adding a new class.

For this reason, I usually disable the Left Alt+Shift combination, because I can still use Win+Space to switch the language. I'm currently using Windows 8.1, and have noticed that for some reason, the Left Alt+Shift has suddenly been enabled. This might be because of Windows automatic updates, but I'm not sure.

Nonetheless, here's how to disable Left Alt+Shift from switching your input language. Click the language indicator in the taskbar (next to the clock), and from the menu, choose Language Preferences. You end up in Control Panel under Language. Here, from the left, choose Advanced settings.

Once in Advanced settings, click the hypertext link that says "Change language bar hot keys". From there, you can disable Alt+Shift, or you can assign another key combination altogether.

Hope this helps!