Alt key stuck, cannot system restore

So I was playing Jade Empire and Alt-Tabbed out of it when suddenly I realise I can't launch any icons from my desktop (like IE) and double clicking launches the properties menu. So after some poking around I determined that the system behaves like my Alt key is stuck on a permanently on basis. Thankfully my housemate has a laptop too so I got online and found this tool called KeyTweak (which was hosted here, nice!) which can block out certain keys/remap keys. So now I mapped my tilde key to 'Alt' because I don't use it much, and disabled my Alt keys; the software said "remapping registry scancodes". And now my computer is *kind of* normal, but I lose the functionality in 1 key (tilde) which I don't use all THAT often.

Booting up in safe mode also eliminates that problem, I'm pretty sure that I either have some malware or have been hacked or both, but my AVG scan shows nothing. Some ()*# hacker must have corrupted some part of my registry or something, perhaps through MSN (I turn my firewall off periodically)
So I'm just wondering if anyone has any idea how I might manually fix the stuck key problem. Thanks!

 

Does your right Alt key have the same symptoms?

A workaround is to create a Shortcut to the MS on-screen-keyboard and use that when you have to.

Path is C:\Windows\system32\osk.exe

Bazza

PS: Just check the osk out more thoroughly and it doesn't look like there is a tilde key on the oSK, unless I missed it.
Forget that suggestion, the oSK is really deficient in showing all keys. Sorry, Baz