Alternative US INTL keyboard layout which is not "clever" with the quotes?

Question

I'm using the US International keyboard layout in Windows 10 because I need a US layout for easily accessible "programming" keys (<,>,[,],(,),|,;, and so on..) together with the ability to write German umlauts ('ä', 'ö','ü', 'ß', ...)

Now I learned that Microsoft uses the "US International" layout to demonstrate it's superior cleverness and cripples fluent writing by introducing smart braces.

Trying to write "US" results in ÜS, writing back ticks, single quotes and double quotes behave differently, and there are many more features which make it impossible to seamlessly switch between systems with "US international" keyboard layout installed.

Answers to this question suggest to just switch to "US" layout. But that way I don't have the "US INTL" layout anymore of course.

Are there alternatives? Can I deactivate this "feature"? (I just realized that trying to write a double quote even behaves differently the second time I try it!)

@Microsoft: Thanks, this is just as useful as Notepad, the Middle-Mouse-Button-Navigator and the CapsLock key (which I know is not your invention)

Answer 1

It happens in Windows and any other OS.

When we use "US International" and we need special characters for the our non-English input language we take advantage of the "dead keys" feature.

That means if you want double-quotes you need to press the key once followed by space. Not using the space will be interpreted as "dead key" and accentuate the next character typed resulting in an umlaut (ü instead of "u...).

It's just a matter of adapting your typing technique like I did - I use a few US Int keyboards for languages like Spanish, Portuguese and French, each one requiring a lot more special characters than German.