US International Layout (no dead keys) for Windows

By default, Windows includes a layout called United States-International, which allows typing many non-ASCII characters. It is very useful for several Latin-script based languages.

The layout also designates several keys as "dead keys", particularly the apostrophe (') and double quotes ("). So to enter double quotes, you have to type " followed by space. Some other characters are available by using AltGr as a dead key.

For some use cases, this can be annoying, in particular if you don't need the non-ASCII characters that are entered with the help of those dead keys. With the US-International layout, you can type several languages by only using the AltGr dead key. For example, you can type ä å ö ü ß ø æ by using various AltGr combinations, meaning AltGr is sufficient for German, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish among others.

This repository contains a layout that is like United States-International but removes the apostrophe ('), double quotes ("), circumflex (^), backtick (``) and tilde (~) as dead keys, while leaving the AltGr dead key combinations intact.

How to build / install

The layout file can be opened with Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator (MKLC) tool, which Microsoft distributes for free. After opening the file in MKLC, choosing Project -> Build DLL and Setup Package will create an installer that can be used to add this layout to Windows.

Remember to log off and on again, in order for the changes to take effect.