How to Remap Windows Key on Your Keyboard
/* Posted October 29th, 2008 at 8:20am *//* Filed under Apps, Microsoft, Mods, Windows */
/* */
If you want to use a keyboard that was manufactured some time ago before Windows was honored with its own key on most keyboards, you can actually still add Windows key functionality to it. These steps don’t call for you to take your keyboard apart or cut any holes in it because no hardware modification is needed.* The caveat: you’ll need to sacrifice an existing key to the keyboard gods if you want Windows key functionality. The program that performs the sacrifice? It’s a nifty application called KeyTweak.
With KeyTweak (download here), you’re presented with a simple graphical interface that will ultimately make the proper changes to your Windows registry to remap your keyboard.
For this tutorial’s purposes, we’re going to sacrifice the Caps Lock key since it’s more of a nuisance than a necessity but it occupies a prime piece of real estate on a keyboard–a perfect place for the new Windows key. To remap, click on key #30, and you should see that it is currently mapped to Caps Lock because, well, it’s where the Caps Lock key should be.
Focus your attention on the drop down, and look for key "Left Windows"–the Windows key that you want to remap the Caps Lock key to. Then click on the "Remap Key" button.
After that you’ll see it appear on the right hand text area side under "Pending Changes." Now hit "Apply" and either restart your computer or else upon your next restart, your Caps Lock key will now be remapped to the Windows key on your Windows keyless keyboard. KeyTweak doesn’t need to be running to have the remap change in effect so there’s no drain on your system. The configuration gets written to your system registry and can be reverted back at any time. You can also go ahead and play with other mappings, including specialized non-standard buttons like volume control, playback, and sleep or hibernate mode keys. Congratulations, you now can throw away the pathetic piece of paper where your Windows key is supposed to be.
Images/Code Retard
Related Posts
Related Stories
Ars Guide: Windows-to-Mac Key Switching
(Apple) Ars shows you how to test and remap keys on your Windows keyboard for use with Mac OS X. There are a few tricks involved, but it's doable.Dugg 51 timesRemap the keys of your keyboard with SharpKeys 2.0
(Software) SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make any key on a keyboard act like other keys for Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and even Vista. Version 2.0 includes a newly design UI and it has been recompiled to use the 2.0 release of the .NET Framework.Dugg 10 timesA neat article on how to remap keyboards in Windows
(Software) Quick easy an informative way to remap keyboards. For all of those people who's keyboards drivers are no longer supported.Dugg 4 times
Subscribe via email
on 
on 
on 
on 
on 
on 
KeyTweak doesn’t work when I try to remap my PrtScrn or Scroll Lock key to either sleep or PowerOff. KeyTweak is worthless. Perhaps it may work with other version of Windoze, but it doesn’t work in my WindowsXP SP3 OS.