Hi all
I use a new Microsoft keyboard for a few months now and it is working great.
The only thing I donít like that they have dual function F-keys and by default
they don’t behave like normal F-keys.
For example Alt-F11 to open the VBE is not working by default.
On the right of the F12 there is a key (F Lock) to enable normal F-Key behavior.
The problem is that you must press this key every time you reboot your computer.
Excel MVP Gord Dibben pointed me to the site of MVP Jason Tsang.
He has a couple of .REG files that will allow you to reverse the default behaviour of the F Lock key or disable it.
One will change the default to “Off”.
http://mvps.org/jtsang/flock.html
The other will eliminate the F Lock feature totally
http://mvps.org/jtsang/flock-e.html
Regards Ron de Bruin
http://www.rondebruin.nl
I’ve use one of these keyboards at work and at the beginning I had a couple of experiences of sitting there tapping at a “function” key with growing alarm and frustration. After about the 3rd time I had adjusted and don’t consider it much of a problem to just toggle the FLock key. Now, if there was a hack to flash a message when I (very infrequently) hit the Scroll Lock, I’d sign up for that. That little message in the status bar is too small. Mostly though, I’d like the CapsLock to be smaller and not next to the Tab key. I’m always capitalizing when I mean to be tabbing…
Well, I particularly detest the fact, that F2 is transformed to Undo. That has me ^%@!#^&$!@$%#$ some times.
Does the reg change affect a laptop’s keyboard at all?
Hi JK
>Does the reg change affect a laptopís keyboard at all?
Don’t know.
I don’t have a laptop so I can’t test it for you.
How do you know when you press the F-lock key several times, if it is on or off mode?
I am using Lotus Notes and when I start to type the e-mail address in the TO: field, and press F Lock, if it is in the on mode, it will automatically send the e-mail versus giving me options for the TO: (for example there are 2 different e-mail address for some people in the office, the one that comes up first is the blackberry e-mail and the second is the company e-mail address).
I am currently using the Microsoft Natural MultiMedia Keyboard.
Thank you in advance.
Like jkpieterse it particularly annoys me that F2 defaults to undo. In Excel F2 edits the current cell and is therefor one of your handiest keys strokes. To have your keyboard undo your latest spreadsheet change when you are trying to edit your spreadsheet is frightingly annoying. There you are trying to move forward with your work, and your keyboard is undoing it…
Hi
Thanks for mentioning my F Lock page as a way to get around the pesky F Lock functionality.
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve updated the page so that there is now a method to work around this issue when you are using a USB keyboard (the old method used the scan code mapper, which works on PS2 ports only).
Information is available at the above mentioned website link, or the new link, which is http://jtsang.mvps.org/flock.html
Enjoy
jkpieterse: The F Lock Eliminator script should have no effect on the laptop (since only the ‘enhanced’ keys, which don’t exist on your laptop anyways, are affected. If you use the commands.xml method, same thing, it should not have any affect on your laptop keyboard because the keys that it does affect don’t exist on your keyboard.