Windows – How to associate the keyboard’s media keys with VLC media player

media-keysvlc-media-playerwindows 7windows-media-center

I've got an ASUS K50AF series notebook with Windows 7 Home Premium x64. I'm using VLC media player, and I want to use media keys (play, pause, rewind, forward, stop) with it. Currently, they're associated with Windows Media Center.

My keyboard

I've tried MK2MP. Unfortunately, it didn't fix my problem, and crashed after restarting VLC media player.

Run time error 31
at line 559

Now, I can't even start MK2MP. Any ideas?

I've disabled Media Center and Media Player. HIP now recognizes media keys, but the keys still don't do anything.

It seems that when I try capturing that key, all programs (including HIP, Key Mapper and AutoHotkey) thinks I pressed the H key.

Best Answer

You need to bind your keys in VLC media player. Other answers were right on this, but they were missing a couple of details which I am pointing out here.

  1. Start VLC media player
  2. Click menu Tools → Preferences
  3. Click the Hotkeys section near the bottom left.
  4. Find the action you want to bind and double click in the "Global" column. If you double click anywhere else, you will be binding the wrong keyboard shortcut.
  5. Press your key. VLC media player should recognize it.
  6. Restart VLC media player. If you are binding global hotkeys, VLC media player must be restarted, so it can listen for them.

VLC media player global hotkeys

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