How do I customize the Action Keys?

[Sparkles1]

HI Boogyeman:

Thank you for your post.

 I understand that you would like to customize your action keys. I am pleased to provide you a link to a Microsoft document that will assist you in this process. "Add an access key to a menu, command, or button"  click here.

[JK223]

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@Sparkles1 wrote:

HI Boogyeman:

Thank you for your post.

 I understand that you would like to customize your action keys. I am pleased to provide you a link to a Microsoft document that will assist you in this process. "Add an access key to a menu, command, or button"  click here.

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Hello,

I recently received an HP Pavilion dv6-3020us as a hand me down.  I, too, am already tired of accidently launching the left column of keys and would like to disable them.  I tried the link suggested above, but it doesn't work.  Could you please direct me to its new location?  Thank you!

[MtothaJ]

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@Shanester wrote:

I'm working on a G62-320CA that has five actions keys on the left side (mail, media, web browser, print, and calculator). How do I customize these? They don't open the correct programs.

Thanks,

Shane.

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Dear All,

Has anybody managed to get these 5 keys working in WIndows 10?

My laptop is a HP G62-B40SW - I have tried installing the HP Quick Launch package (SP56221) however this does not make any difference - the keys are still not working.

I am fine with doing the registry edditing and can find the registry paths mentioned in this thread, however can someone be more specific as to how the entries should look like?

For example for the calculator key, I can find the registry path: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\18 

Inside this folder I just have a 'default' = value not defined entry

I understand I am supposed to add an entry ShellExecute with a value of calc.exe

What type of entry is this - string, dword etc?

ANy additional assistance would be appreciated.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@MtothaJ

Welcome to HP Forums, 

This is a great place to get support, find answers and tips, 

Thank you for posting your query, I'll be more than glad to help you out 🙂 

As I understand you want to customize or get the multimedia keys working on WIndows 10,

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help, however, to provide an accurate resolution, I need a few more details: 

Did you know that HP doesn't support editing or making changes to the Registry?

That said, I looked up your product specifications and found the OS supplied by HP was: Windows 10 and downgrading to windows 7 isn't possible unless you've made use of a retail version of the windows and I'm afraid that is not supported by HP. 

  

Unfortunately, I can only help you once you’re back on OEM, 

If you need assistance obtaining a recovery media, please Click here for the details.

Keep me posted,

If the information I've provided was helpful, 

Give us some reinforcement by clicking the solution and kudos buttons, 

That'll help us and others see that we've got the answers!

Good Luck.

[MtothaJ]

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@Riddle_Decipher wrote:

@MtothaJ

Welcome to HP Forums, 

This is a great place to get support, find answers and tips, 

Thank you for posting your query, I'll be more than glad to help you out 🙂 

As I understand you want to customize or get the multimedia keys working on WIndows 10,

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help, however, to provide an accurate resolution, I need a few more details: 

Did you know that HP doesn't support editing or making changes to the Registry?

That said, I looked up your product specifications and found the OS supplied by HP was: Windows 10 and downgrading to windows 7 isn't possible unless you've made use of a retail version of the windows and I'm afraid that is not supported by HP. 

  

Unfortunately, I can only help you once you’re back on OEM, 

If you need assistance obtaining a recovery media, please Click here for the details.

Keep me posted,

If the information I've provided was helpful, 

Give us some reinforcement by clicking the solution and kudos buttons, 

That'll help us and others see that we've got the answers!

Good Luck.

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I appreciate taking the time to post but your reply was generic and not at all helpful:

- the system in question is a G62-B40SW and not the G62-320CA you linked to

- regardless, both systems came with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Windows 10 was not even out when these machines were released

I have checked the hotkeys in 2 scenarios - i) the original Win 7 restorted from the HDD recovery partition and ii) the same restored Win 7 upgraded to Win 10 through the MS upgrade program. In both cases the hot keys do not work.

I would be more than happy not to have to do any registry edits however it seems that the HP software does not work and support for these machines has been discontinued for some time as evident by the fact that the drivers for these machines are only available for Win 7 32 and 64 bit and not for any newer version of Windows.

I have also verified that the left WIN key does not work, with all other keys functioning fine. To make sure that this is not a physicial / hardware problem with the actual keyboard, I have ordered a HP replacement keyboard for the machine, so within the next week or so will be able to confirm whether installing a new keyboard changes anything.

[MtothaJ]

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@MtothaJ wrote:

I have also verified that the left WIN key does not work, with all other keys functioning fine. To make sure that this is not a physicial / hardware problem with the actual keyboard, I have ordered a HP replacement keyboard for the machine, so within the next week or so will be able to confirm whether installing a new keyboard changes anything.

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Just installed a new keyboard in the G62. The result is that the left WIN key and the Action Keys all work fine.
So in case anybody has a similar problem and has exhausted software related ways of remedying this, the problem may not be in the drivers but in the hardware (keyboard).

If your action keys are not working my advise would be to first and formost download a program called 'keyview' and check whether the action key presses are at all being registered. If not, then there is no amount of driver / software tweaking that will help you - you have to replace the keyboard.

If the buttons are registering but are not performing the intended actions then its just a case of downloading the appropriate software from HP or adding the necessary changes to the registry.

For WIndows 10 I found that the best version of HP software i.e. one that works and shows up in device manager as 'PS2 keyboard with HP QLB' is SP49104 and not the one in the driver section on the respective HP product page.
If one wants to manually add / modify the action keys then you can use e.g. Sharp Keys and this will also work and allow you to reasign which program is launched when a given action key is pressed.