Keytweak is a free application which can remap any button on your keyboard and is compatible with Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win 7.KeyTweak has a great user interface which displays your keyboard on screen and then click any key to remap it. You can easily undo changes by either remapping the key to the default one again or by clicking on the restore Default button in the lower half of the interface. You can also completely disable a key (like the Windows key, caps lock and so on).
Keytweak also has a teaching mode for remapping keys:
When ‘Begin Teach Mode’ is pressed, KeyTweak will hook the keyboard, and display the scancode of the first button pressed under ‘Scancode of Key #1’. Then it will display the scancode of the second key pressed and display it under ‘Scancode of Key #2’. KeyTweak then unhooks the keyboard. At that point, the user can decide to reteach, remap, or cancel by pressing on one of the three buttons on the screen. If remapping is selected, the new mapping will appear in the Pending Changes listbox on the main screen. The user will then have to press Apply to apply the pending remap.
Why would you like your keyboard remapped, one might ask:
Unless you are one of the few people that make use of every key on your keyboard and are completely happy with your keyboard layout, there is probably something you would like to change on your keyboard. Maybe you have an IBM Thinkpad and you really miss having a Windows Logo key. Maybe you are used to using a different keyboard and you keep hitting the wrong key. Maybe you know that you are going to be doing a lot of numerical data entry and would like to change your Num Pad + key into a Tab key for a little while. How about changing Scroll Lock into a Mute button? There are lots of reasons for why you might remap your keyboard. I had a Dell Inspiron 3800, a model who was notorious for losing functionality in four keys: 8, I, K, and comma. I remapped 8 to F8, I to Right-Alt, K to Right-Ctrl, and comma to F9. Tada, a semi-working keyboard again. Good enough to use while traveling anyway. My wife uses a Thinkpad and really missed having a Windows key and didn’t mind giving up Right-Alt to get it. Sure you could remap your keys the hard way by wading through scan codes and reversing the hex notation. But why do that when there’s a simple app that can do it for you?
