hi, don't know if you've sorted this already but it could be that you have your windows keyboard language set wrong.. there are both US and UK types of keyboards and they have buttons placed differenty.
this article will tell you how to change/check your keyboard language settings, so then you know there set for your region.
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Change-Keyboard-Language-In-Windows-XP&id=1013144
Triston, May 2008