Key Mapper allows you to disable a keyboard key or to remap it to act as another key which isn't on your keyboard. In this faq, the term "key mapping" is used to describe disabled and remapped keys.
Unlike other programs which do this, Key Mapper lets you set key mappings for each person who on your computer (as well as mappings which apply to all users). These don't require Administrative rights, and you can log off and on again to set and cancel key mappings rather than having to restart your computer. This functionality was introduced in Windows XP, so Windows 2000 users can't have per-user key mappings.
The most common uses are disabling the Num Lock or Insert key - keys which most people never press except accidentally, and which cause confusion and inconvenience when they are pressed.
Another common use is disabling Caps Lock, or perhaps remapping it to Shift, so accidentally pressing Caps Lock doesn't turn on Caps Lock, but it's functionality is still partially preserved. An option would be to remap another key to Caps Lock - perhaps Scroll Lock, which only Excel power-users ever use.
You can also remap keys you don't use to keys which aren't on your keyboard - Volume Up and Down, Play and Pause, Email.
If you using virtualisation to run Windows on a Mac, you will have noticed that Mac keyboards don't have many of the keys Windows uses, for example Print Screen and Scroll Lock, and Key Mapper lets you map keys to these, as well as remapping the Command key to Control and choosing which keys activate the context menu. This also applies when using Remote Desktop For Mac to administer a Windows computer remotely. (If you use Remote Desktop for Mac Beta 3 on a Mac with a UK keyboard layout, disabling both Alt keys stops the annoying problem with the Alt key 'sticking' when pressed)
If your laptop keyboard has a broken key, you can use Key Mapper to map another key to the broken one rather than buy and fit a new keyboard.
To disable a key you can see on the virtual keyboard, drag and drop it off the virtual keyboard.
Also, if you want to map a key to another and they're both on the virtual keyboard, you can drag and drop the action key onto the target key. For example, to map Caps Lock to act like Left Shift, drag and drop the Left Shift key onto the Caps Lock key.
If you want to remap a key on the virtual keyboard to a key that isn't on the virtual keyboard, double-click the key to bring up the Add Mapping screen. From here, you can choose what you want the key to do from the lists presented.
The key lists are divided into three groups:
If you want to remap or disable a key that itself isn't on the virtual keyboard, you can either select it from a list of keys or use Key Capture.
Once you've selected the key, you again choose from the list of actions, use Key Capture to grab a key that's on your keyboard, or click Disable to disable the key.
If the remapped or disabled key is shown on the virtual keyboard, simply drag it off the keyboard to restore or enable it.
If the remapped or disabled key isn't on the virtual keyboard, you can delete the key mapping from the Mapping List screen. Click on Mapping List in the keyboard's Windows Menu to show the screen: it shows all your current and pending key mappings, and allows you to delete key mappings by clicking the Delete column.
You can also clear all your key mappings by choosing "Clear All Mappings" from the Mappings menu.
Key Mapper supports Undo and Redo from the Edit menu: you can also restore your key mappings to their current effective state by choosing Revert To Saved Mappings from the Mappings menu (this restores the key mappings shown to those which are currently in effect, discarding any new key mappings and restoring any cleared key mappings)
You can also clear all your key mappings by choosing Clear All Mappings from the Mappings menu.
If there are keys you never use - some function keys, perhaps - you can remap them to something more useful.
There are some key mappings to non-standard keyboard keys that can be useful: how well they work depends on which program you use for music and web browsing.
You need to unmap the key and choose another: key key mappings apply to all programs or none.
Probably not. Most keyboard drivers act on special keys before they reach Windows, which means they can't be remapped or disabled. If you want to try, you can select the key from the key lists or try using Key Capture (if you do that, close any open documents as it may well cause your computer to sleep or shut down).
By default, remapped and disabled keys only apply to the current user (except in Windows 2000, which only allows key mappings which apply to all users). To set key mappings which apply to all users and which take effect before a user has logged in (i.e. at the Windows Login screen) click Show and then Boot Mappings from the Mappings menu, and create the required key mappings. You can have both boot key mappings and user key mappings: if the same key is remapped in each, then user key mappings override boot key mappings. If you use Fast User Switching, then you will need to use Boot Mappings as User Mappings are discarded when using Fast User Switching to switch to an account that is already logged on.
Using Boot Mappings requires you to be an Administrator on your PC.
Show the Colour Map form from the virtual keyboard's Windows menu. You can double-click on a button to invoke the Colour Editor, which lets you tweak individual colour components and set the font colour. Alternatively, click the Random key until you find a colour you like! The Colour Map form has a right-click menu which allows you to show all the possible buttons instead of just the ones in use, to close all editor forms, and to reset all the colours back to their defaults.
You can reset the positions of the child windows by choosing Arrange All in the Windows menu.
The Toggle Key menu allows you to turn Num, Caps and Scroll lock on and off: this can be useful if you have disabled one of those keys but another application then switches the value.
If your Enter key is shown in the wrong orientation (i.e. horizontal when it should be vertical) you can switch it by clicking "Change Enter Key@ on the Keyboard menu, and you can click "Always Use This Enter Key Orientation For This Layout" on the Keyboard menu to save the change.
If you have multiple keyboards installed, the displayed keyboard should be the same language as your current keyboard unless you've changed your keyboard since Key Mapper started.
The Keyboard Menu is also the place to specify you have a Mac keyboard (where the Alt and Windows (Command) keys are reversed), or switch the Number Pad off if you have a laptop.
The Mapping List screen shows you all your user and boot key mappings, whether current, pending or cleared.
Chinese and Korean keyboards require an Input Method Editor, which use multiple keypresses to construct a logogram representing a word. The way Key Mapper gets the layouts for other languages doesn't work on Chinese or Korean keyboards.
You need your Windows installation disk, or at least an i386 folder with the Windows installation files. A recovery disk from a PC manufacturer might not work though, it depends how it's configured.
To install them, first you need to open "Regional and Language Options" in Windows' Control Panel, select the Languages tab, and check both "Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages ..." and "Install files for East Asian languages". The required files will be installed when you click OK or Apply so have your CD (or the path to your i386 folder) handy, and you'll need to restart your computer.
No. Scancode key mappings apply to the physical key - Shift-4 is two keypresses, Shift and then Four. If you want to remap these kinds of keypresses, there are a lot of programs which will enable you to do it - they run in the background, detect your keypresses, and can then launch programs or substitute other characters (and that's why they don't require you to restart your computer or log off) There are some quirky key combinations which can be remapped though, due to the way Windows processes keypresses - you can remap Alt-PrtScr and Ctrl-Break, for example (Alt PrtScr puts a screenshot of the program currently running on your clipboard, and Ctrl-Break cancels some dialogs, e.g. the 'Open File' dialog.)
You can toggle the value of the Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock keys from Key mapper's Toggle Keys menu.
Use the "Set Current Toggle Keys As Default" item on the Toggle Keys menu to set the keys at login.
No. You can use Microsoft's own tool for this, or there are alternatives like KBEdit
Key Mapper writes your key mappings to the system registry in a format that Windows understands. The format is documented here, although the fact that you can have per-user mappings in Windows XP or later isn't documented.
When Windows starts (or when you log in, for per-user mappings) , it reads the registry to see what keys should be disabled and what substitutions should be made.
If you set user mappings (which are the default in Windows XP and Vista) and then use Fast User Switching to switch to a user account that's already logged on, that user's key mappings will not be loaded.
Your keyboard driver is acting on the keypress before it reaches Windows
If your keyboard has a numeric keypad, Shift-NumericZero toggles Insert. Generally, Insert / Overtype is application-specific: if you're using Word, there's a small button marked OVR at the bottom of the Window which toggles between insert and Overtype modes (in Word 2007 it's hidden away in Word Options / Advanced / ' Use Overtype Mode')
Microsoft have a knowledge-base article on the subject with more options, charmingly called "Text that is to the right of the insertion point disappears as you type in Word"
Key Mapper uses a keyboard hook for Key Capture, and also to detect if Num Lock or Caps Lock is pressed while the program is running. The source code is available to browse or download, if you want to make sure for yourself. If you want to build it, you can use Microsoft's free C# Express Edition.
Key Mapper automatically disables Num Lock when you remap your Pause key, as otherwise Num Lock will toggle whenever you press the remaped Pause key. Even if you have Num Lock remapped to another key, it will still fire when you press the remapped Pause key, which could be very annoying: a useful side-effect of this though is that you can assign two keystrokes to the Pause key: the first is what you remap Pause to, and the second is what you remap Num Lock to.
In order to do this, you have to remap Pause to the first key in the combination, let Key Mapper disable Num Lock, then re-enable Num Lock and map it to the second key in the key combination.
For example: remapping Pause to Alt-F4: Map Pause => Alt Num Lock: => 4
Pause is thus remapped to Alt-F4, the shortcut used to close programs (or if the desktop has the focus, restart Windows)
Another example: remapping Pause to the Euro symbol Pause => Right Alt Num Lock => 4 $
Other combinations you can use: Shift-F10 (Context menu) Shift 2 (or Shift ' depending on keyboard layout) to get @ Windows-L (Lock Workstation in Windows XP or later)
This functionality will have to wait for a future version. Alternatively, try the Optimus Maximus keyboard (Thanks to Steve Ward for this question.)