Emulate a keyboard button via the Command Line

Question

My keyboard doesn't have a Num Lock key, and none of the registry edits work for some reason.

Can I use the Command Prompt or PowerShell on Windows 10 to "press" a key? I'm looking for something like press pgup to press the Page Up Key in the Command Prompt or PowerShell, but for Num Lock.

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:41

19

How do I toggle numlock status using PowerShell.

Use the following script:

$wsh = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$wsh.SendKeys('{NUMLOCK}')

Source StackOverflow answer PowerShell: Toggle “Num Lock” on and off. by Andy Arismendi

As pointed out by ABashore in his comment this can be shortened as follows:

$wshell.SendKeys('{NUMLOCK}')

edited May 23 '17 at 12:41

Community

1

answered Oct 27 '15 at 15:53

DavidPostill

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It doesnt appear that you need to define "wsh" to do what he needs. I was able to simply toggle the NUMLOCK with just a single line. – ABashore Oct 27 '15 at 16:11
@ABashore Cool. I've upvoted your answer – DavidPostill Oct 27 '15 at 16:13
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For one line command what worked to me was: (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).SendKeys('{NUMLOCK}') – Davidson Lima Oct 23 '20 at 14:24

score 10 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 03 '15 at 21:03

10

Here's a powershell line that will toggle your NUMLOCK. I've tested this and it works on my Logitech K120 USB keyboard.

$wshell.SendKeys('{NUMLOCK}')

Here's a list of the other SendKey codes.

If you need to send the keystroke to an interactive application, more code will be needed.

edited Nov 03 '15 at 21:03

Josh

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answered Oct 27 '15 at 16:10

ABashore

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Did you mean I don't need to define `$wshell`? Is it like a keyword? If I do `if(-not [console]::NumberLock){ $wshell.SendKeys('{NUMLOCK}'); }` in my .ps1 file, it complains `You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.` – ontherocks Aug 11 '23 at 05:55

Garric · Answer 3 · 2020-05-27T11:54:34.777

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Batch

Without creating temporary files. The 'loop' was shown only so that you could open a notebook for output. Remove it after.

    @echo off
        :loop
            ::------------begin main code------------
            set command=new ActiveXObject('WScript.Shell').SendKeys('WoW{ENTER}{ENTER}');
            for /f "delims=" %%i in ('mshta "javascript:%command%close(new ActiveXObject('Scripting.FileSystemObject'));"') do set
            ::-------------end main code-------------
            timeout /t 1 /nobreak >nul
        goto :loop

edited May 27 '20 at 11:54

answered May 27 '20 at 11:27

Garric

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would you mind updating your answer to give a little more information as to what’s going on in that script? – ZomoXYZ May 27 '20 at 22:28

Emulate a keyboard button via the Command Line

3 Answers3

How do I toggle numlock status using PowerShell.

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