keyDown() does not work with Internet Explorer Driver

I have tried to do it in different ways, but what works on Chrome (version 46.0.2490.86 m) and Firefox (version 42.0) won’t work with IE 9. Neither

browser.actions()
            .sendKeys(protractor.Key.chord(protractor.Key.CONTROL, '1'))
            .perform()

nor

browser.actions()
            .keyDown(protractor.Key.CONTROL)
            .sendKeys('1')
            .keyUp(protractor.Key.CONTROL)
            .perform();

work. I use protractor to send my tests to the selenium standalone server (which is on a VM which runs win7). Please tell me in case I overlooked something or if there is a workaround for this issue.

Full test:

describe('keyDown', function () {
    browser.ignoreSynchronization = true;
    browser.get('http://ci.seleniumhq.org:2310/common/keyboard_shortcut.html');

    it('should work with IE9', function () {
        browser.actions()
            .sendKeys(protractor.Key.chord(protractor.Key.CONTROL, '1'))
            .perform()

        expect(element(by.tagName('body')).getAttribute('style')).toContain('background: red');
    });
});

Thank you in advance, Miro

[jimevans]

What happens if you start your IE session with setting the requireWindowFocus capability to true?

[pavoltravnik]

requireWindowFocus capability to true helped