Spontaneous Character Change

[roiHunter]

I have had a problem with the special characters spontaneously changing on my
keyboard. This has happened in Word, WordPad and Internet Explorer (probably
more programs, but I haven't checked more yet). The characters I am talking
about are: `~[{]}\|,<.>/?. that show up as: /\^¨çÇàÀ,’.â€Ã©Ã‰. All other
characters appear normal.
They will stay remapped until spontaneously they change back; usually after
quiting the program and going back to them later.
Right now, the characters in WordPad are changed, but not in this message
and not in Word.
I have tried the language setting in regional settings and it shows English
Canada.
What else can I try.