Fast forward 40 years. We now have dedicated arrow keys. But the hardware standard never fully died.
You boot up your PC, sit down, type your PIN to log in, and... nothing happens. Or worse, you start typing letters and get numbers instead (looking at you, laptop users). You glance down. The little green light is off. Again. num lock on startup
Imagine trying to type "Hello" and getting "H3LL4". That is the laptop user's nightmare. For you, keeping Num Lock at startup is the priority. The Ultimate Verdict: Should you fix this? Fix it if: You use a desktop with a full keyboard, or you use an external number pad for Excel/data entry. The productivity gains are worth the 3 minutes of registry editing. Fast forward 40 years
The real chaos started with (enabled by default). When you shut down a modern PC, Windows hibernates the kernel. It often saves the last keyboard state, but ignores the BIOS setting. Meanwhile, your BIOS (the firmware that boots the PC) has its own "Num Lock state" setting. These two often conflict. You boot up your PC, sit down, type your PIN to log in, and