How to remap Right-Win and Right-Alt keyboard keys

Question

... on a Unicomp Ultra Classic Buckling Spring keyboard in particular.

I recently bought one of these IBM Model M revivals. A great keyboard with one slight flaw: there are no Power, Sleep, Wake keys and a rather big flaw: they decided to swap the Right-Win and the Right-Alt keys so that it looks like:

  Space    Alt  Ctrl

With many years of using a different layout this is uncomfortable, of course.

I tried Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) 1.4, but it refuses to work properly on my Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit: it doesn't display the layout after File → Load Existing Keyboard...:

See also Any ideas why Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 refuses to work properly on my Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit?.

Answer 1

Since Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) 1.4 fails to work properly you can use the following low-level solution that is derived from information on (German) WinFAQ.

Create the following two .reg files with a text editor of your choice and execute them alternately to load the given keys/values into your Windows' Registry:

HKLM^SYS^CCS^CTRL^Kbd_Layout^Scancode_Map#Swap_R-Win_R-Alt.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:\
  00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,\
  03,00,00,00,\
  38,e0,5c,e0,\
  5c,e0,38,e0,\
  00,00,00,00

HKLM^SYS^CCS^CTRL^Kbd_Layout^Scancode_Map#Reset.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:\
  00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,\
  01,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00

Note the reversed order of LSB (least significant byte) and MSB (most significant byte) within the 2 bytes of a scancode, a.k.a. little-endian. Note also the backslash character (\) for line continuation.

You have to restart Windows/reboot your machine for a change of mappings to take effect.

Technical Background Info

Scancode Map entry:

Bytes	Size	Values	Description
0 … 3	4	00 00 00 00	Header: Version info, always all 0
4 … 7	4	00 00 00 00	Header: Flags, always all 0
8 … 11	4	LM¹HM²00 00	Header: Mappings count (c) + 1 (for the trailer) in little-endian byte order, i.e. at least 01 00 00 00
12 … s	c × 4	LN¹HN²LO HO	New / Old scancodes in little-endian byte order (s = 11 + c × 4)
t … t+3	4	00 00 00 00	Trailer (t = s + 1 = 12 + c × 4)

¹ L ... low byte, least significant byte (LSB)
² H ... high byte, most significant byte (MSB)

See the following pages/documents for scancodes:

• WinFAQ: ScanCodes der Tasten (German; scancodes' byte order is already reversed there and such ready for entering into .reg files or directly into the Registry via Windows' Registry Editor)
• Andries Brouwer: Keyboard scancodes
• Microsoft: Windows Hardware Dev Center Archive:
• Input / HID Archive: Keyboard Scan Code Specification (DOC)
• USB and 1394 Archive: USB HID to PS/2 Scan Code Translation Table (PDF)

UPDATE

MSKBLC works with Windows' DPI Settings of 100 % only (see Sam Arutuk's answer to my question Any ideas why Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 refuses to work properly on my Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit?):

Apparently the keys can't be remapped.