How do I turn this text thing off?

[Casey]

Like sometimes when Im typing in windows, I make a mistake and when I type in that mistake (trying to fix it), it deletes the letters ahead of that mistake.

[Flying Mullet]

If you hit the "Insert" key, it will overwrite the characters in front of the cursor rather than inserting characters in the middle of your sentence.

[Rainecloud]

I do it all the time. 'tis a pain in the posterior.

Just be careful not to hit that 'Insert' key.

[Peegee]

I argue (poorly) that the insert key is thoroughly useless.

[Flying Mullet]

Then I'll argue(expertly) that the insert key is useless?

Can anyone give an example of why it is needed today?

[Dr Unne]

Sometimes when typing, going into insert mode is a good thing. If I spell a word with one letter mistyped, I can hit insert and type the next letter and viola, it overwrites the mistake. Faster than positioning the cursor, hitting backspace or delete, then typing the new letter.

Also, CTRL+Insert = copy, Shift+Insert = paste. That sometimes works in places that CTRL+C and CTRL+V don't. It's also easy to hit those keys with your right hand. Depending on how you type, it can be faster to use your right hand for copy/pasting sometimes than using your left. Often I'll hold Shift with my left hand, use the arrow keys/page(up|down)/home/end with my right to highlight things, and copy/paste with my right since my hand's already right there.

EDIT: Added more reasons.

[Flying Mullet]

Bah, I forgot to put the disclaimer at the end of my question:

<i>Can anyone give an example of why it is needed today</i> <b>except for Unne because he'll find good reasons</b><i>?</i> :p

[crono_logical]

That block of 6 keys there is handy for secondary functions in 3D games, as well as for changing settings on the fly in emulators :p

[Peegee]

Unne's responses are pretty user-specific. I use ctrl-c/v expertly, and I have no problem fixing my typos by retyping words over and over and over and over instead of taking the time to use the insert function.

I also don't typically use scroll lock (what does it even do?) either. Whenever I see a flowing mess of code/output, I hit the pause button. There's a 'SysRq' under my Prt Scr key. I don't know what that does either. There's a weird button to the left of my right ctrl button that seems to do what right clicking does. I don't use that either. I also don't use the right windows key...

Ah forget it. If I had my way the keyboard would only have 95 keys and would look too odd.