Please Help!

[Macrath]

Something odd seems to be happening with my Med 2 Total war game.. I have never experienced this problem and have no idea what could be causing it.
My problem is while in battle or before battle, during the deployment phase if i press different Number keys (to group units and select which groups to highlight) the game screws right up. The sound becomes muted, the console opens as if i pressed the ~ key, battle time is set at top speed/6, and a menu window opens. This doesn't crash the game and i can simply turn sound back on and speed back down and resume battle, but it's still getting very annoying..

So to try and explain more clearly here is what happens.. I have a full stack army, I arrange all units into groups of four, so each group of four units is now groups 1 to 4. Now if i pause battle and scroll thru my grouped units by pressing 1,2,3, and 4 the game screws up usually after pressing my fourth number key.

Please help..apologies for bad english, hard to explain myself at times, i hope this wasn't too confusing

[Emperor of Hell]

Aren't those keys shortcuts for something or whatever? Press F1 for a list