Microsoft Windows Keyboard remapping

Remapping the Caps Lock key to Ctrl on your keyboard increase productivity and make keyboard more Sun-like.  It is highly recommended. Capability of remapping keys is present in Microsoft Windows registry. All you need is some helper to do it quickly and correctly. There are several different helpers that provide GUI interface for such remapping:

• The simplest is to to use registry hack provided by RandyRants SharpKeys. This is a really well-written small utility that I highly recommend (see also an article that explains its usage -- Map Any Key to Any Key on Windows XP ):

  SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make certain keys on a keyboard act like other keys. For example, if you accidentally hit Caps Lock often, you could use this utility to map Caps Lock to a Shift...

Along with remapping Ctrl to Caps-Lock which correct a long-standing defect in design of Windows keyboard (compare pressing Ctrl-C using regular Ctrl and remapped Caps-Lock and you will instantly understand what I am talking about) there are three other useful Windows key combination that can be remapped are (some keyboards have additional buttons that can be used for that):

• Show desktop (Win-D). Can be remapped to Calculator key on keyboard such as Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

• Open a Windows Explorer window (Win-E).

• Open process viewer: Ctrl-Shift-Esc

Microsoft has a special page with keyboard shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts for Windows. It contain quite a bit of information that probably none of us suspect can exists taken into account Microsoft preoccupation with GUI.  But paradoxically the company is very keyboard friendly ;-). And always was. Still friendliness aside, life is too short to learn all those combinations so please be selective.  See also Microsoft Windows shortcuts

General keyboard shortcuts

• CTRL+C (Copy)
• CTRL+X (Cut)
• CTRL+V (Paste)
• CTRL+Z (Undo)
• DELETE (Delete)
• SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle Bin)
• CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
• CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word)
• CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word)
• CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
• CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph)
• CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)
• SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or select text in a document)
• CTRL+A (Select all)
• F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
• ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the selected item)
• ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the active program)
• ALT+ENTER (Display the properties of the selected object)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active document in programs that enable you to have multiple documents open simultaneously)
• ALT+TAB (Switch between the open windows)
• ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened)
• F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
• F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for the active window)
• CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)
• ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu)
• Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
• F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
• RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
• LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
• F5 key (Update the active window)
• BACKSPACE (View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• ESC (Cancel the current task)
• SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from automatically playing)
• CTRL+SHIFT+ESC (Open Task Manager)

Dialog box keyboard shortcuts

If you press SHIFT+F8 in extended selection list boxes, you enable extended selection mode. In this mode, you can use an arrow key to move a cursor without changing the selection. You can press CTRL+SPACEBAR or SHIFT+SPACEBAR to adjust the selection. To cancel extended selection mode, press SHIFT+F8 again. Extended selection mode cancels itself when you move the focus to another control.

• CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
• CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the tabs)
• TAB (Move forward through the options)
• SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the options)
• ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command or select the corresponding option)
• ENTER (Perform the command for the active option or button)
• SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
• Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
• F1 key (Display Help)
• F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
• BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box)

Microsoft natural keyboard shortcuts

• Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
• Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
• Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
• Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
• Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the minimized windows)
• Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
• Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
• CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
• Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
• Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
• Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
• Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)

Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts

• END (Display the bottom of the active window)
• HOME (Display the top of the active window)
• NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
• LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
• RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder)

Shortcut keys for Character Map

After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by using the keyboard shortcuts:

• RIGHT ARROW (Move to the right or to the beginning of the next line)
• LEFT ARROW (Move to the left or to the end of the previous line)
• UP ARROW (Move up one row)
• DOWN ARROW (Move down one row)
• PAGE UP (Move up one screen at a time)
• PAGE DOWN (Move down one screen at a time)
• HOME (Move to the beginning of the line)
• END (Move to the end of the line)
• CTRL+HOME (Move to the first character)
• CTRL+END (Move to the last character)
• SPACEBAR (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected)

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) main window keyboard shortcuts

• CTRL+O (Open a saved console)
• CTRL+N (Open a new console)
• CTRL+S (Save the open console)
• CTRL+M (Add or remove a console item)
• CTRL+W (Open a new window)
• F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the MMC window menu)
• ALT+F4 (Close the console)
• ALT+A (Display the Action menu)
• ALT+V (Display the View menu)
• ALT+F (Display the File menu)
• ALT+O (Display the Favorites menu)

MMC console window keyboard shortcuts

• CTRL+P (Print the current page or active pane)
• ALT+Minus sign (-) (Display the window menu for the active console window)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the Action shortcut menu for the selected item)
• F1 key (Open the Help topic, if any, for the selected item)
• F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
• CTRL+F10 (Maximize the active console window)
• CTRL+F5 (Restore the active console window)
• ALT+ENTER (Display the Properties dialog box, if any, for the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active console window. When a console has only one console window, this shortcut closes the console)

Remote desktop connection navigation

• CTRL+ALT+END (Open the Microsoft Windows NT Security dialog box)
• ALT+PAGE UP (Switch between programs from left to right)
• ALT+PAGE DOWN (Switch between programs from right to left)
• ALT+INSERT (Cycle through the programs in most recently used order)
• ALT+HOME (Display the Start menu)
• CTRL+ALT+BREAK (Switch the client computer between a window and a full screen)
• ALT+DELETE (Display the Windows menu)
• CTRL+ALT+Minus sign (-) (Place a snapshot of the entire client window area on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)
• CTRL+ALT+Plus sign (+) (Place a snapshot of the active window in the client on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)

Microsoft Internet Explorer navigation

• CTRL+B (Open the Organize Favorites dialog box)
• CTRL+E (Open the Search bar)
• CTRL+F (Start the Find utility)
• CTRL+H (Open the History bar)
• CTRL+I (Open the Favorites bar)
• CTRL+L (Open the Open dialog box)
• CTRL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same Web address)
• CTRL+O (Open the Open dialog box, the same as CTRL+L)
• CTRL+P (Open the Print dialog box)
• CTRL+R (Update the current Web page)
• CTRL+W (Close the current window)

Other information

Some keyboard shortcuts may not work if StickyKeys is turned on in Accessibility Options.

Some of the Terminal Services client shortcuts that are similar to the shortcuts in Remote Desktop Sharing are not available when you use Remote Assistance in Windows XP Home Edition.

Some of the other Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that have similar information as this article are:

126449 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449/) Keyboard shortcuts for Windows

255090 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255090/) Keystroke navigation in Windows 2000 Help

Refer to Help for the most current information regarding keyboard navigation and visit the following Microsoft Accessibility Web site for additional information that relates to keyboard shortcuts and keyboard navigation in Windows and other Microsoft products:

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20081111 : RandyRants SharpKeys ( RandyRants SharpKeys, Nov 11, 2008 )
• 20081111 : RandyRants Remap Mouse Buttons ( RandyRants Remap Mouse Buttons, Nov 11, 2008 )
• 20081111 : Remap Capslock - The Most Useless Key jon lee dot see eh ( Remap Capslock - The Most Useless Key jon lee dot see eh, )
• 20081111 : Annoyances.org - re Question about Customize Your Keyboard Mapping (Windows XP Discussion Forum) ( Annoyances.org - re Question about 'Customize Your Keyboard Mapping' (Windows XP Discussion Forum), )
• 20081111 : Remap Caps Lock and Left Control on Windows XP David Stanek's Digressions ( Remap Caps Lock and Left Control on Windows XP David Stanek's Digressions, )
• 20081111 : Tip #75 - Remap CAPSLOCK key in Windows 2000 Professional and NT4.0 vim online ( Tip #75 - Remap CAPSLOCK key in Windows 2000 Professional and NT4.0 vim online, )
• 191202 : 6 useful Windows tricks ( 6 useful Windows tricks, )

Old News ;-)

[Nov 11, 2008] RandyRants SharpKeys:

An excellent small utility. High recommended...

SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make certain keys on a keyboard act like other keys. For example, if you accidentally hit Caps Lock often, you could use this utility to map Caps Lock to a Shift...

[Nov 11, 2008] RandyRants Remap Mouse Buttons

Remap Mouse Buttons

SharpKeys: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 at 03:25 PM by Randy

---

X-Button Mouse Control: X-Mouse Button Control is a windows application to remap your mouse buttons.
This software is designed and written for Microsoft Windows XP/2003 x64 Edition but I have also, from version 1.5, built a 32bit version.

You are able to provide an application specific mappings, which means one application can use the mouse differently from another. This is useful for games which do not inherently support the extended mouse buttons, because you can map keys to each button.

A number of people that have looked at SharpKeys have asked me about remapping mouse buttons... I haven't tried it but it looks like it would get the job done.

Remap Capslock - The Most Useless Key jon lee dot see eh

The Caps Lock key on your keyboard is frequently renowned as the most useless key. Even the One Laptop Per Child laptops have dismissed the caps lock key in favor of a more ergonomic Ctrl key! Well perhaps it is not as useless as Scroll Lock but it is taking up very valuable keyboard estate in its current position. Amongst all keys in close proximity to a touch typist's hand placement, caps lock is by far the least used (if typing correctly).

Anything caps lock does can be done by the shift key and more efficiently - except when you're writing something in all caps, which should be quite rarely. Case in point, I had a friend that refused to use the shift key for reasons unknown. If he had to capitalize a letter, he would press caps lock, type the letter and press caps lock again to turn it off. Some would argue caps lock is important for the disabled with poor motor-control but Window's "sticky keys" is a much better solution for them anyway.

What can it be remapped to?

• Esc
  The escape key is a pretty useful key for certain applications (*cough* Vim) or for closing windows and prompts. Since it normally requires removing the hand from its regular typing position, remapping it right beside your pinky seems pretty efficient! Also, the Ctrl-Shift-Esc combo is very handy and this makes it tons easier to press (don't know what it does, try it out!).
• Backspace
  Just like the Esc key, backspace is fairly out of the way and hard to press yet is used very often. Makes a lot of sense to make it more accessible.
• Windows Key
  Personally, I have mine remapped to the Windows Key (yes another hated key) simply because neither my IBM Thinkpad nor my IBM Model M includes one. I use the Windows key mainly to show desktop (Win-D) or to open up a Windows Explorer window (Win-E).
• Ctrl
  Although the control key is very accessible, some people find it uncomfortable to press in its current position.
• Enter key or Space Bar or Anything Else
  What can be more fun than having Enter keys on both sides of the keyboard! Or if your thumb gets tired, you can start using your pinky to type spaces instead!

How to remap Caps Lock to another key
For Linux users (on an X environment like KDE, Gnome), it's pretty easy to remap keys using the xmodmap command.

For Windows users, there are programs that will remap keys for you but if you're not afraid to tinker with your registry, you can do this manually and it only requires adding one registry value:

1. Go to Start->Run and type in 'regedit' to open the registry editor.
2. Navigate to:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
   Note: Keyboard Layout, not Keyboard Layouts!

3. Go to Edit->New->Binary Value and name it 'Scancode Map'
4. Now double-click and edit the value to the following, replacing ## ## with the scan code of the key you wish to map caps lock to.

   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 ## ## 3a 00 00 00 00 00

   The scan code for Windows Key is 5B E0, Esc is 01 00, Ctrl is 1D 00. Full list of scan codes and a more detailed tutorial is here.

5. Reboot your computer and say goodbye to caps lock!

How often do you use the caps lock key? Got another candidate for the most useless key? Have you remapped caps lock to something else? Leave a comment!

Annoyances.org - re Question about 'Customize Your Keyboard Mapping' (Windows XP Discussion Forum)

re: Question about 'Customize Your Keyboard Mapping'
Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 11:09 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Craig Leres (1 messages posted)

Here's how I disabled the caps lock on my IBM X22 Windows XP system. My solution was to map caps lock to left shift. As previously noted, this should also work for Windows NT and and Windows 2000.

Scan Code Mapper for Windows is documented here:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/input/w2kscan-map.asp

This page doesn't give the scan code for left shift; I found that here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q59131

Here are the scan codes given on this page:

ctrl	0x1D
alt	0x38
left shift	0x2A
right shift	0x36

The map value is as follows:

00000000	header version (zero)
00000000	header flags (zero)
00000002	number of entries (including terminator)
003A002A	map caps lock (0x3A) to left shift (0x2A)
00000000	null terminator map

If you want to just disable caps lock, map it to zero (0x00) instead of left shift (0x2A).

Converting these values to little endian you have:

00000000 00000000 0200000000 2A003A00 00000000

Now fire up regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

Create a REG_BINARY entry called Scancode Map with the value calculated above. After you enter the values, the "modify" window should look like this:

Value Name:

Scancode Map

Value data:

0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0008 02 00 00 00 2A 00 3A 00
0010 00 00 00 00

Exit regedit, reboot and test.

Written in response to:

re: Question about 'Customize Your Keyboard Mapping' (Scott S: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 4:13 am)

Remap Caps Lock and Left Control on Windows XP David Stanek's Digressions

Unfortunately I am stuck using Windows XP at work. Every other machine I use is Linux. To increase productivity I have always mapped the Caps Lock key to Control and vice versa. I almost never use the Caps Locks and very frequently use Control so it was an obvious change.

However, under Windows this is not very easy. It took lots of Google searching to find the solution. Save the following to caps-control.reg:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1D,00,3A,00,3A,00,1D,00,00,00,00,00,00

Simply right-click the file and tell Windows to merge the changes into the registry. The changes will take effect only after a reboot. Once I found the initial solution finding addition resources on the topic was easy.

Tip #75 - Remap CAPSLOCK key in Windows 2000 Professional and NT4.0 vim online

created:June 7, 2001 5:54 complexity:basic author: Igor Prischepof as of Vim: 5.7

If you're Windows 2000 Professional user and got tired to move your hands off basic row when hitting <ESC> key
here the solution (not for Windows 9x.):
remap CapsLock key as <ESC> key. It's located in useful position.
Put this lines into <EscLock.reg> file and start it in explorer.Reboot.Enjoy.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

To restore you capslock back just delete this entry from Registry and reboot.
And below is remapping <capslock> as <Left Control>:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

6 useful Windows tricks

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Created Jan 2, 1997. Last modified: March 12, 2019