Character accent shortcut 'mode' ?

On my old computer (may it rest in peace), my windows somehow had it set so that when typing on my keyboard I could type ' then e and end up with an accented e, etc. This meant that when typing an ' i had to press space afterwards to make it appear. It sounds annoying but I got used to it. My new windows xp pro PC doesnt have this enabled and I can't find mention of it anywhere on the net.

How can I reenable this function?

 

I'm aware of the alt key combos and third party software that allows you to do it, but I want to set my system back to the way it was on my old computer, where all i did was press ' and then e to produce é and so on for all accentable characters. It was much more efficient than using the alt combos or having to press 'ctrl' first.

Has nobody ever heard of this function in Windows?

 

it was the same (literally) copy of XP Pro. I am set to United States English on my keyboard

 

Using the same keyboard and the same copy of Windows. The only thing that changed is all of the hardware, fresh install of windows, and new hard drives.

 

while I didn't build the original computer, it was custom built for video editing, and the keyboard functioned as described from day 1. I can't imagine that the system vendor would add third party keyboard software for a video editing machine. I will never know though, as the company has since dissolved.

 

If you press Ctrl + ' and then press the vowel, it will work.
(Only way I've done it)

mickzer.