Keyboard-only column block selection in GVim Win32, or why does Ctrl-Q not emulate Ctrl-V when mswin.vim is included?

Question

I want to be able to select columnar blocks using only the keyboard when I use GVim on Windows, but I do not seem to be able to do so when using gvim (7.2) on Windows XP. E

Answer 1

The noremap in mswin.vim remaps the original command to Ctrl + Q.

If mswin.vim is included, after pressing Ctrl + Q, the indicated mode should switch to Visual Block, and any movement (e.g. j, l, w) extends the visual selection. If that doesn't work for you, you may have something interfering.

Are those movement commands itself remapped, or is there an autocmd on CursorMoved?! Try disabling your plugins (vim --noplugin) and most parts of your .vimrc.

Note that cursor keys do not normally constitute proper movement (and their use in Vim is frowned upon).

What you perceive as the right (and only) way to extend the selection (with shifted cursor keys) is just a consequence of :set selectmode=key, as done by :behave mswin.