How do I toggle Scroll Lock on a Pavilion g7?

[breyed]

The laptop keyboard has no Scroll Lock key. How do I emulate it? Maybe the fn key combined with something?

(Note that I am asking only about the keyboard, not anything to do with the mouse. Scroll Lock is used with applications such as Microsoft Excel to control whether the arrow keys cause the selection to move or the display to scroll.)

[SeanS]

Hey breyed,

What operating system are you using? Depending on the operating system will depend on how to resolve the issue.

Thanks!

Sean

[breyed]

Windows 7. Soon, I'll want to know for Windows 8 as well.

[AnotherLarry]

One way on Windows is with the on-screen keyboard.

On Windows 7, click the Start button, All Programs, Accessories, Ease of Access, and then On-Screen Keyboard.  When the keyboard appears, click the ScrLk button.

[breyed]

Good point about the on-screen keyboard. Quite inconvenient, unfortunately. Hacking something together with AutoHotKey would probably be better. I was really hoping that HP support would address this issue. It's disappointing to have the HP guy, SeanS, ask about details, ask for a blue kudos star if he helped, but then disappear into the ether for a couple months and counting.

[AnotherLarry · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I thought it was strange the HP guy asked for details (because there are so many popular OSes that run on a Pavilion g7 he couldn't possibly list solutions for all of them) and disappeared.

I agree the onscreen keyboard is inconvenient if you want to switch scroll lock state often.  If you can live without some other key on the keyboard (maybe the "QuickWeb key" which is where F5 is supposed to be) you could modify the Windows registry to map it to scroll lock.  One fairly convenient way to do that is with a program called SharpKeys from http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/.  Click Add, click Type Key in the left column, press the key you want to use, click OK, select Special: Scroll Lock in the right column, click OK, click Write to Registry, and it should work after your next reboot.  (I haven't tried this with Scroll Lock, but it should work.)  Or AutoHotKey.

[breyed]

The SharpKeys hack of remapping the QuickWeb key assumes that I don't need F5, right? The first thing I did when I got the laptop was flip the BIOS setting to turn the function keys back into function keys.

[AnotherLarry]

It's good to hear there's a BIOS setting for that.  I was unaware.

Yes, this hack requires that you steal some key of the keyboard so it no longer performs its current function and instead works as Scroll Lock.  Maybe you don't need the "QuickWeb key" which you currently get when you press Fn+F5.  That would affect only Fn+F5 and would leave F5 without Fn alone.

[breyed]

Running SharpKeys and mapping “Web: Home” to “Special: Scroll Lock” worked prefectly. I like how it's a passive solution: no app needs to intercept and replace the keystroke. Thanks AnotherLarry!

[Thekingkyle]

Ok my fellow ppl. I'll tell you how. On the scroll pad there is either a small light or depression on the top side of the scroll pad. Double tap on that and you see it activate your scroll pad. That's how you turn it off and on.