Dell Multimedia Keyboard (SK-8135) and Windows 7

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2[H]4U
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Jun 12, 2001
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I just picked up a Dell Multimedia Enhanced keyboard off the 'Bay' for a cheap price and it works fine with Windows 7 but is there anyway to program what the enhanced Multimedia keys do? I know the keyboard is from the XP days and MS released Power Toys (For XP only) that allowed you to change what the enhanced keys did is there anything like that for Windows 7? I tried the Dell site to no avail (all they have is 32 but XP drivers) So does anyone know of a third party App that will allow me to change what the keys do?
The keyboard is model SK-8135 and it seems alot of people like this keyboard as I do and I want to get Winamp to recognize the enhanced keys (Play/Pause/Next, Prev Track Stop Etc) It works fine with Windows Media Player but I lke to use Winamp for my Primary Music Player
 
Thank You the Second thing in your list worked I totally forgot about that feature set in Winamp
 
I tried the program called Sharpkeys and that did not work (Said Unrecognized Scan Code, I need to find another program that will tell me the scan codes that each key gives out, Key logger?? as I think the Dell KB uses non standard enhanced key codes)
But It will work with The built in windows programs I want to change what all of the functions do as I don't use most of the default MS programs So are there any other programs out there?
 
OK I found a program called Event Ghost and it seems to do what I want it to but how do I disable the built in windows Functions of the keyboard? I mean I press the Calculator button I get the program I specified in event ghost + the Default windows calculator and another example I changed the volume to only do Winamp and both the Winamp and the System Volume change Is there a way thorugh Event Ghost or Windows 7 (I am using Windows 7 Ultimate) to disable the default HID Functions?
 
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OK I found a program called Event Ghost and it seems to do what I want it to but how do I disable the built in windows Functions of the keyboard? I mean I press the Calculator button I get the program I specified in event ghost + the Default windows calculator and another example I changed the volume to only do Winamp and both the Winamp and the System Volume change Is there a way thorugh Event Ghost or Windows 7 (I am using Windows 7 Ultimate) to disable the default HID Functions?
Click to expand...

This might of some help. I only skimmed it, so I don't know exactly what it says.

http://forums.dvbowners.com/index.php?showtopic=2017
 
Hey, I found this in the registry on my Win7 Pro install

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Appkeys

In there was a subkey named 18 with a ShellExecute entry set as calc.exe. I changed it to MSpaint.exe. Now when I push my Calcualor key and it starts MSpaint. No reboot was required.
 
OK I tried that and it worked perfectly I use CDML Personal Caculator as my Calculator Program so here ("C:\Program Files (x86)\CDML\Personal Calculator\CDMLPClc.exe") is what I entered and it worked now I just have to disable the volume somehow as the rest of the keys already do what I wan to do by default and with Event Ghost
 
I would like to expand on the instructions a bit, especially for Windows x64 users. I am using Windows 7 Pro x64 and do have the Dell SK-8135 keyboard.

I snooped around a bit on the net and found pieces of the procedure (for instance here and here), but not the entire process I needed to follow. Microsoft also has some useful and related but not directly applicable info here. As I prefer not to install programs, if possible, I went into the registry. The standard caution applies with manipulating the registry that, while not overly complex, the possibility of borking your Windows install, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, etc. can result.

OK, first open the Registry Editor (Start menu > Run > "regedit") and you will find 2 hits if you search for "AppKey" at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey] and [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\AppKey].

With this keyboard you only need to be concerned with [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey]. I use foobar2000 to play music and while the stop, previous, next, and play/pause keys all worked out of the box using foobar2000 v1.0 beta6, hitting the "music note" opens Windows Media Player. Back to the Registry Editor, in the [...AppKey\16] folder you will note there is a String Value with Name "Association" and Data ".cda".

To make the "music note" key launch foobar2000, we need to remove the existing String Value and add a different one. Simply right-click and select Delete to remove the "Association" String Value then right-click on a blank part of the Registry Editor window and select New > String value. Type in "ShellExecute" as the Name of the String Value, then double-click on the new String Value and type the path to the EXE file of the program you want to launch. Since the path will likely contain spaces, make sure to include the full path in quotes. For foobar2000 under Windows x64, the path will be "C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe". You can use a different path to launch a different program, of course.

As far as I can tell, [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\AppKey] doesn't matter as I only had to modify one location in the registry.

That should do it. Now try hitting the "music note" key and verify the program you want to launch does in fact launch. You're done!

For your concise reference, I put "ShellExecute" = "C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\16].
 
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I found this really helpful, so even though it's an old post I wanted to add what I found. There are two AppKey sections that need to be edited (at least with 64 bit Windows 7).

For example I wanted the email button to launch Quicken for me. So here are the keys as originally found in the registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\15]
"Association"="mailto"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\AppKey\15]
"Association"="mailto"

So this isn't specifically launching Thunderbird (my email client), but instead just starting whatever is the default application for email. If I hadn't set Thunderbird as default it's likely that Outlook would've been launching.

But this doesn't help me open Quicken. If I wanted to go through Explorer to find my Quicken datafile and open based on the file's extension then I could have changed it to .qdf and it would launch the application for .qdf files -- on my system that's Quicken.

But I don't want to have to dig through to my datafile. So it's necessary to delete the "Association" string value. Then create a new string value and since this time it will be launching a specific program the name needs to be ShellExecute and then the value is the path to the application. So in my case this is C:\Program Files (x86)\Quicken\qw.exe

So after editing the registry for changing the mail button is going to look like this: (in both locations)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\15]
"ShellExecute"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Quicken\\qw.exe"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\AppKey\15]
"ShellExecute"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Quicken\\qw.exe"

The next problem I had was that the multimedia control keys. They would work when iTunes was the foreground application, but as soon as I had another program with focus on the screen my only option was to hit the media player button to bring iTunes back to the front.

Not elegant. So I kept searching.

At this site, http://www.everythingitunes.com/os/windows/2008-01-04/mmkeysdll/ - I found a very clever little iTunes Plug-in, mmkeys.dll, that I dropped into the iTunes directory. Launched iTunes and it's been flawless since.

May you have a long and happy life with your favorite keyboard.
 
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