So for a few months i have a PC now to play games on. And it’s fun. Much better than using the iMac for my main gameplayingbusiness. I run Windows 7 Ultimate on the PC and a few things kept nagging at me.
I love the Apple keyboard and for the PC i initially bought a Logitech G110 keyboard. Today o swapped it out for a full size Apple Aluminum keyboard. However, i then found out the key layout and mapping were all wrong.
This was quickly remedied by installing the Apple driver from the bootcamp package.
I then found out that the media keys on the key board don’t work. This was also quickly fixed by remapping the keys. And for the volume up and down indicator i installed 3RVX.
Here’s how to do it:
First plug in the Apple keyboard. Let Windows do it’s thing in installing.
Find and download a bootcamp package. This must be version 3.0 or higher.
In the package of drivers you’ll find an Apple folder inside the Drivers folder. The driver you need is in here.
Remove everything related to Boot Camp except for these 4 files: AppleKeyboardInstaller.exe, AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi, BootCamp.msi and BootCamp64.msi.
For my windows i used BootCamp64.msi since my windows is 64 bit. And installed the keyboard driver.
When done you’ll be able to select the Apple keyboard layout in windows.
Next you’ll want to start the Apple Software Update from the Start menu. Cancel the check for new software and go into the Edit menu and open Preferences. Disable automatic updates. Since Boot Camp is installed. You’ll get the full driver package when you update. You don’t want that.
Next. To get the function keys to work for volume. Install SharpKeys (http://sharpkeys.codeplex.com/).
Map the keys you want. I just needed the volume ones.
Sharpkeys is very easy, click ‘Add’ and map select the key to be pressed on the left and the action on the right. Click ‘Ok’ to save it. Once you have all mappings set up press ‘Write to Registry’, reboot the PC and it should work.
Since Windows doesn’t recognize the media keys by itself you need to press them in combination with the ‘Fn’ key.
Maybe there is a tweak/thingy to enable them, but i couldn’t find it.
Finally Install 3RVX (http://matt.malensek.net/software/), which ads a OSX like volume indicator. Other themes are available. Some nice ones. But personally i found the OSX one best suited. And BOOM! a bit better controls and use of Windows using a Apple Keyboard on a PC.
