Simulating the Windows key on an old keyboard
I'm using a very old keyboard that doesn't have a physical Windows key — it does have a 5/180° connector and an AT/XT switch on the back — but I don't want to completely miss out on the functionality of the Windows key.
Is there some group of keys in Windows 7 Pro that simulates Win when used together? In other words, I want to be able to take any key combination that uses Win, mentally remove Win and drop in this other group of keys and have the original combo work.
If no such combination exists, how can I create one?
I know that I could just plug in a newer keyboard that has a Windows key, but the whole point of this question is to avoid that. None of the existing windows-key questions seem to address this; the closest is this one, but it doesn't actually say how to create the mapping.
This is for my work computer, so "install this utility/plugin" isn't a good option for me. Feel free to answer with those for the benefit of others, though.
46 Answers
Remap your capslock key with a quick registry hack? The Caps lock key is worthless.
Paste this into a file called something like remap_caps_to_windows.reg and double click it. You must restart for the changes to take affect
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,5c,e0,3a,00,00,00,00,00CTRL-ESC brings up the Start Menu.
Unfortunately, it does not allow the other windows key shortcut functions. For instance CTRL-ESC-Pause/Break will not bring up system properties. And CTRL-ESC-R will only bring up Run if you release CTRL-ESC before striking R, and then it'll only work if there aren't any entries in your Start Menu beginning with "R".
0In Windows 10 the keymap suggested in the accepted answer maps Z and M to B and maps B to Z.
It was funny until I realized my username has an "M" in it. Thankfully Win10 has the on screen keyboard option in the accessibility options during login, but this wouldn't show up for the "Run as administrator" dialog.
Anyway, using SharpKeys I found the correct map for CAPS LOCK to Win is this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,5b,e0,3a,00,00,00,00,00You could create a custom keyboard layout with the key remapped.
Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator may be able to do the job.
You can remap any key to be a Windows key using KeyTweak.
It's just a GUI interface to the registry, so does the same thing as what Zoredache suggests in his answer.
In AutoIt, this should do it using Ctrl + Shift + w:
HotKeySet("^+w", "WinKey")
While 1 Sleep(100)
WEnd
Func WinKey() Send("#")
EndFuncAutoIt does not need to be installed on a computer for it to run. It can be compiled into an executable that contains the interpreter so that it can run on any windows machine. You also don't need to install it to write and compile, you can simply use the zip download.
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