barryvan

Tag: Windows

  • Apple Keyboard & Windows

    At work, I recently moved to one of the slim aluminium Apple keyboards, and I love it. Linux and the keyboard play nicely together without any hassles whatsoever. So, emboldened by this success, I bought another one for use at home — with my Windows machine. The results were, well, less than dazzling.

    Whilst the keyboard’s basic functions pose no problem to Windows — it is, after all, just a USB keyboard — there were some problems, especially with the Function keys. Basically, the [fn] key doesn’t seem to generate a recognisable keycode for Windows, which meant that I didn’t have access to all the spiffy multimedia controls and so on.

    After much googling and installation of keyboard drivers originally distributed with Apple’s Boot Camp, I eventually stumbled across a great little utility by Petr Laštovička, which allows a fairly clean and simple remapping of keys to functions. [For the Googlers who’ve arrived here looking for a solution to the Mac Keyboard + Windows problem, it beats out Sharpkeys for me because it can handle key combos.]

    So, ultimately, I have ended with a very good-looking, nice-feeling keyboard that works 99% of the way I want it to. My biggest gripe is that changing the volume now requires me to press [Command]+[Fn]+[F10/F11/F12], rather than just [Fn]+[F10/F11/F12], as I can in Linux. I’m quite happy with this keyboard — although it’s not 100%, it’s definitely much better than most similarly-priced keyboards (at $69AUD).

  • Changing Windows’ default font

    You may have noticed that Windows has a rather haphazard way of applying the fonts specified in Visual Styles. That is to say, whilst a particular visual style may attempt to enforce a particular font, Windows will often ignore this in applications and dialogs.

    The problem is a registry key, which enforces font substitutions in Windows. Now, most applications specify their font as MS Shell Dlg or MS Shell Dlg 2. By default, these two fonts are replaced by Microsoft Sans Serif and Tahoma, respectively. To achieve a more uniform feel across your system, all that you need to do is edit these substitutions.

    To do this, run ‘regedit’ from your Start menu. Then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes. You should see a list of key/value pairs on the right. Simply double-click on the entries for MS Shell Dlg and replace their contents with the font of your choice — make sure, however, that you spell it exactly right.

    That’s it! The change will be in effect once you restart. Bear in mind that this is a change made to the entire Windows installation, not just your user settings.