New version of Windows Live Writer fixes AltGr issue

A new build (15.4.3508.1109) of Windows Live Writer 2011 was released today for the primary reason to fix an issue with using the AltGr key on many keyboards used worldwide.  Just about five weeks ago we started to receive reports that AltGr+1 or any number 1-6 or AltGr+V was not having the desired effect.  Here is what should have happened for a few different keyboards:

Keyboard	AltGr+1	AltGr+2	AltGr+3	AltGr+4	AltGr+5
Spanish	|	@	#	~	€
Swedish		@	£	$	€
French		~	#	{	[
Swiss German	¦	@	#	°	§

Instead of the expected character this would get mapped to the ribbon shortcuts since AltGr really is the equivalent to Alt+Ctrl.  For 1-6 it would map to changing your HTML style and for “V” it would do a paste special.  If you were trying to type an email address with the “@” symbol or type a currency symbol it would be very frustrating.  Overall this affected 103 different keyboards used in over 400 locations worldwide.

The built in virtual keyboards that come with the operating system do not generally show this issue and you needed to have a real keyboard with an AltGr key.  My question to our beta testers is why did y’all not see this in your testing?  What can we do different in the future with a beta to help find these type of bugs assuming we cannot find them in-house?  The beta was released in at least three countries where the standard keyboard has an AltGr key.