Search Companion opens every time I press Left Control key

[RalphNZ]

Hello,
since last night, every press of my left control key opens (another) Search Results window (with that dog, the one that replaced the paperclip...ugh...). It also causes fullscreen applications to minimise (so I can frown at that dog...again) This is driving me insane! I have run AVG. I have rolled back a week. I have ditched AVG, installed Avast, and run that too. I ran it at boot, and all it discovered was that AVG had been corrupted. My keyboard does not seem to have any stuck keys. No amount of fooling with the (few, weak, inadequate) options of Search Companion seems to help. Any ideas, please? The only reference I could find in a day and a half of googling was a guy whose Space Bar suddenly started doing the same thing, but tragically, no-one had answered his cry for help. The tweakUI program swears that no mappings have been assigned to Left-Control in the registry either, so I have no idea why XPsp3 has suddenly decided to ruin my life with scores of goofy unwanted puppies. Halp!!

 

[RalphNZ]

Bizarrely, swapping the keyboards seems to have solved the problem. The spare keyboard is in a USB port, the old one was using the proper keyboard port. This is unsatisfying because a: i do not want to tie up my last free USB port with a keyboard, and b: i cannot for the life of me think why my last keyboard would have gone insane - the problem was surely software oriented. I have written a curt email to Microsoft, and when they get back from the luxury resorts they spend their weekends at, they may be able to offer some advice. If they do, i'll post it here so all may benefit (or /eyeroll, more likely).

 

[RalphNZ]

Oh, this is even better: A different keyboard (but one that uses the proper keyboard port) does NOT have the "left-control summons demon-puppy" effect.

How can that be?? How can my old keyboard have been possessed by demonic Windows Search-Puppies? It's hardware, for the love of Bill!!