On my Mac, I use Microsoft's Remote Desktop app to connect to a Windows box. I can see in the preferences how to map the Command key to Alt, and the Option key to the Windows key, so that the Alt and Windows keys are in the same physical layout on my Mac RDP connection as they are on the actual Windows keyboard. That is, the Alt key (Command) is directly to the left of the space bar, and the Windows key (Option) is directly to the left of that.
But if I set it up that way, I can't use Alt-Tab on the Windows machine–the Mac intercepts it and treats it as a Command-Tab to switch away from the RDP app. I know some programs are able to prevent this–VirtualBox and VMWare, for instance, let you use Command-Tab as Alt-Tab inside a windows guest. (In fact, one solution to this I had was to use a Windows virtual machine on the mac, only to use that to RDP into another machine!)
Short of creating a windows virtual machine, is there any way I can get the Mac RDP app to send Command-Tab as Alt-Tab to the remote Windows machine?
Best Answer
Native within OSX, you can remap existing menu items. If your application has a menu item for CMD+TAB, you are in luck.
For me, I needed to disable (or remap) CMD+W when using Microsoft Remote Desktop (muscle memory would press CMD+W to close a tab within a remote session and would accidentally close my remote session). I originally tried karabiner but it was way overkill for this.
How to remap a command for specific application:
ShortcutsTab ->App Shortcutspane -> Click the+button to add new application specific command remap