I've become very accustomed to my mac's apple command location for copy paste operations etc. I'm back and forth between windows and os x and a few times an hour. Windows has something called Scancode keys built in (but not really); this will let you switch the positioning of your alt and ctrl key to act like an apple layout.
Warning!! This is not for novices. DCE is not responsible for you screwing up your registry. Modify your setting at your own risk.
That being sad, it't not that difficult, just protecting my ass. From the start menu open run and type regedit and hit enter. When you're inside regedit goto
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
When your in Keyboard Layout make sure your not in Keyboard Layouts (notice the s for plural). Right click within keyboard layout and create a new Binary Value. (see the image for example) Name your REG_BINARY value to Scancode Map and right click to modify binary data.
For value data you need to input each code individually, no copying and pasting. Enter 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 1D 00 38 00 38 00 1D 00 00 00 00 This will swap the alt with the ctrl key. See the image for an example. Click OK and restart windows.
If done correctly you will be ctrl tabbing through your programs or alt tabbing .... Some good advice is to stop looking at your keyboard or the Key Labeled CTRL functioning as ALT will mess with your brain.
If you hate the way this works just go back into regedit and remove that Scancode Map key, restart, and back to normal.
Here are the resources DCE used if your interested in modding your keyboard more or want to know why this works:
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Learn to Swap your ALT and CTRL keys in Windows XP. Windows has something called Scancode keys built in (but not really); this will let you switch the positioning of your alt and ctrl key to act like an apple layout. The jump from Apple Command to CTRL is messing with my pinky so lets fix it. Read Full Article...
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um. does this switch the control and ‘command’ keys, or just switch the control and alt(option) keys? seems like switching the alt and control wouldn’t be much use since the command key is the one that is the keyboard shortcut in os x… also, is this operation possible for a complete xp novice? thanks…. c.
Carter, this will make your CTRL key act as ALT and ALT key act as CTRL. Basically a mac layout would go: CTRL ALT APPLE COMMAND. Since the apple command key functions as the windows CTRL key (for operations in photoshop and copy paste etc) this mod puts the ctrl key in the apple command key position. The new layout on your windows machine would be : ALT START CTRL, if you are looking to make the layout like this: START ALT CTRL which would be swapping around 3 keys, the binary code would be much different. You should try doing the swap the way listed here first. If you are successful then you can move on. Hoped that helped. Post your results, we are here to help when we have time.
Thanks! This is gonna save me a lot of aching carpol tunnel aches… I use Macs and PC (Macs at work, PC at home) and I really want to stop using the CTRL key for shortcuts… hopefully this does the trick!
Now, how does one set the alt key (which is now CTRL) to alt-tab? It has been a few weeks since I used a Mac, but is not it Open-Apple-Tab to tab through apps? Now, if I could tab through my applications like a Mac, I would really be loving my keypad!
Definitley would be an interesting mod to research; getting it to work depends on how hardcoded it is in microsofts core. I’m thinking about adding to to switch the windows key with the ctrl key (now the alt key) I have this going on my desktop computer.
Microsoft also provides cool tools to change the alt tab operation look to show the full windows. Go to microsoft.com and search “xp power toys”
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