Windows Keyboard – How to Remap Right-Win and Right-Alt Keys

keyboard-layoutkeymapwindowswindows-registry

… on a Unicomp Ultra Classic Buckling Spring keyboard in particular.

I recently bought one of these IBM Model M revivals. A great keyboard with one slight flaw: there are no Power, Sleep, Wake keys and a rather big flaw: they decided to swap the Right-Win and the Right-Alt keys so that it looks like:

  Space    Alt  Ctrl

With many years of using a different layout this is uncomfortable, of course.

I tried Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) 1.4, but it refuses to work properly on my Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit: it doesn't display the layout after File → Load Existing Keyboard…:

Empty MSKLC

See also Any ideas why Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 refuses to work properly on my Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit?.

Best Answer

Since Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) 1.4 fails to work properly you can use the following low-level solution that is derived from information on (German) WinFAQ.

Create the following two .reg files with a text editor of your choice and execute them alternately to load the given keys/values into your Windows' Registry:

HKLM^SYS^CCS^CTRL^Kbd_Layout^Scancode_Map#Swap_R-Win_R-Alt.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,\
  38,e0,5c,e0,\
  5c,e0,38,e0,\
  00,00,00,00

HKLM^SYS^CCS^CTRL^Kbd_Layout^Scancode_Map#Reset.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,\
  01,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00

Note the reversed order of LSB (least significant byte) and MSB (most significant byte) within the 2 bytes of a scancode, a.k.a. little-endian. Note also the backslash character (\) for line continuation.

You have to restart Windows/reboot your machine for a change of mappings to take effect.

Technical Background Info

Scancode Map entry:

┌──────────┬──────┬─────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Bytes | Size | Values │ Description │
├──────────┼──────┼─────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 0 … 3 │ 4 | 00 00 00 00 │ Header: version info, always all 0 │
│ 4 … 7 │ 4 | 00 00 00 00 │ Header: flags, always all 0 │
│ 8 … 11 │ 4 | 0m 00 00 00 │ Header: mappings count[c] + 1 [for the trailer] │
│ 12 … s │ c×4 | LN¹HN²LO HO │New /Old scancodes in little-endian byte order │
│ t … t+3 │ 4 | 00 00 00 00 │ Trailer (t = s + 1 = 12 + c × 4) │
└──────────┴──────┴─────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

¹ L ... low byte, least significant byte (LSB)
² H ... high byte, most significant byte (MSB)

See the following pages/documents for scancodes:

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