Whether the number lock on your keyboard is switched on by default is controlled by a setting in your computer’s Bios. That is the name for the collection of settings and checks that the computer goes through as soon as you switch it on, before Windows loads.

There are several different kinds of Bios and the procedure is different for each, so we can’t give you a single step-by-step guide. As a starting point, when you switch the computer on you should see a screen with ‘press F2 for setup’ on it.

The key may be Esc, Del, F1, and instead of setup it may say Bios. When you press the key the computer will load the Bios settings.

From here it is a case of looking in the menus to find the setting for Num Lock and changing this, then saving your settings. Make sure you don’t change anything other than the Num Lock setting, as it can otherwise be tricky to go back to how it was before.

If you make a mistake, look for an option to ‘discard changes and exit’ or something similar, which will return you to the start-up screen, from where you can try again.