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techsupportbyimaradio

Windows: remap caps to control (work computer)

At work I have a Windows PC. I don't have much personal experience with Windows which is why I am asking.

I want to remap the caps lock key to function as a control key. Ideally, on a per-user basis as sometimes other people use the workstation and I don't want to confuse them.

  • Was able to install Auto Hot Key. A test script worked. However I couldn't find working instructions about how to do this specific remapping. Example scripts I found seem to have some conflict between v1 and v2 of AH.

  • I don't have admin access however I could probably ask for something, but it would have to work immediately without a lot of fooling around. I will not be granted admin access to try a bunch of things til I find something that works.

What's the best way?

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11 replies

imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

I tried installing Power Toys a while ago but the version of windows is too old to support it.

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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

Thanks I will do this!

Does this first line mean anything? I didn't install anything except the basic AH package:

;The keyboard hook must be installed.
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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

ah OK thanks!

I will try this when I am at my workstation.

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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

Oh sweet if there was a native windows option that would be best.

Tho I feel like I might have tried this and it didn't work somehow. I will try again when at my workstation.

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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca
  • I have small hands that makes certain key combos involving ctrl difficult/uncomfortable to reach
  • at home I have caps lock remapped and therefor I am constantly using it by muscle memory
  • Even before I had remapped it at home, I would sometimes enable it by accident which is annoying
  • in previous versions of windows (I think windows 8?) I could disable caps lock entirely in a system setting but it seems they have removed this option from more recent version
  • it's right there
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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

That's interesting I didn't know that. I used to share workstations with someone from indonesia who had what seemed like very strange habits of employing caps lock constantly. I assumed it was just a personal weirdsy but maybe it was due to use of caps lock in another linguistic context.

However, I know for a fact that it doesn't do anything I need. I've had it remapped for a couple years on personal machine without issues.

Thanks for telling me though, because I will be sure not to fallback to the registry or another method that changes behavior system-wide. Would not want to prevent anyone else from using the device.

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dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️reply
lemmy.world

I don't see how it would be a problem unless you reassigned it while caps lock was enabled, in which case you would have to reboot (or temporarily revert your remap) to turn it off.

I can think of precious little software that actually requires caps lock for anything, and otherwise for normal typist tasks you can just use shift. I never use caps lock for anything, personally. (Ditto with num lock. My keyboard has a full number pad and a full set of arrow/insert keys. There is no reason for my number pad to ever not be a number pad.)

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imaradioreply
lemmy.ca

At home, once in a while caps lock turns itself on somehow. I have a shell alias to fix the problem:

UNCAPS='xdotool key Caps_Lock'

Should this happen at work I was thinking to either temporarily disable the application that is doing the remapping, or use some sort of onscreen keyboard to inactivate the caps lock.

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