In Windows Vista, in the keyboard setup portion of Control Panel, there was an option to change the delay between the time I pressed and held a key until the auto-repeat function kicked in.

Is there a way to do this in Windows 8.1?

tanstaafl.

On my copy of Windows 8.1, it's still there in the same place it always was, Control Panel, (search box:) Keyboard. There are sliders for repeat delay and repeat rate, in the same old dialog box as always.

Strangely, I can't seem to find out how to reach that dialog box without using the control panel's "search" box to find it. If I try to navigate the hardware menu by hand, I can't see an option for the keyboard. Note that I have that same problem on both Win7 and Win8.1, so this isn't a Win8-specific thing.

Note: If you're having trouble finding the old-school control panel at all in Windows 8.1, you can make a shortcut to CONTROL.EXE.

Odd. My Control Panel menu has it. I just never noticed the "Speed" tab and always ended up in the "Mouse and Keyboard Center" default, so I missed being able to change the auto-repeat delay.

Thank you. That 10-second delay (OK, more like three quarters of a second, but it seemed like 10 seconds!) was driving me crazy.

Hah! I made the computer store put that shortcut down in my taskbar before I even brought the computer home!

tanstaafl.