I did an automatic installation of Windows Server 2008 in VM Workstation and was thus given a US keyboard automatically.

Although I use a Finnish keyboard, there have been enough cases in the past where early beta software only worked with a US keyboard so I know where most of the differences are.

This meant that I carried on first customizing the server and installing WSS 3.0 and only then decided I was fed up with having to use a US keyboard and specified a Finnish one and made sure that was the one being used.

The next time I tried to log-in as Administrator (or indeed as me as I had cleverly (!) used the same password for that) I couldn't.

The problem was that my standard password for test machines includes a (number and a) "*" to get over the need in some OS's for strong passwords.

I had typed this in as usual but as I was using a US keyboard (and as I did this automatically) I wasn't actually selecting a "*" (which on my Finnish keboard is Shift-8 or "(") but was selecting something else.

So I went to the Internet and searched for a layout of a US keyboard. Easy, I thought, find which character the one I pressed is in a US keyboard and then type that character in my Finnish keyboard.

Did I tell you that I used the "*" .....  that key on my Finnish keyboard is three keys (and shift) to the right of the L in the middle line starting A,S,D,F,G,H,J,K,L ?

Look at the US keyboard layout and what do you find ? That's right there are only TWO keys to the right of the L (despite the middle line also starting A,S,D,F,G,H,J,K,L).

In other words, there is no way of finding a Finnish keyboard equivalent to that key and all I can do to login as Administrator for the server is to - it seems - remove the Finnish keyaboard and only have the US keyboard left - then I can click on that key three to the right of the L. 

(Attempts to just have the US keyboard selected (and retain the Finnish keyboard but not selected) led to masses of incorrect logins.)

For now I'm back to having only US keyboard specified. That isn't satisfactory for a proper test machine as I haven't even got a genuine US keyboard (and this is anyway a portable) so at some stage I'm going to have to do the whole thing again. This time specifying Custom installation!