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PowerToys Keyboard Manager utility for Windows | Microsoft Docs

Posted by jpluimers on 2024/01/19

It looks like after decades, ReMapKey (from the Windows 2000 and 20023 Resource Kits, see If you miss having the Caps Lock button on your #Chromebook… (via: Google Chrome – Google+)) got a successor:

[Wayback/Archive] PowerToys Keyboard Manager utility for Windows | Microsoft Docs:

The PowerToys Keyboard Manager enables you to redefine keys on your keyboard.

For example, you can exchange the letter A for the letter B on your keyboard. When you press the A key, a B will display.

You can also exchange shortcut key combinations. For example: The shortcut key Ctrl+C will copy text in Microsoft Word. With PowerToys Keyboard Manager utility, you can exchange that shortcut for ⊞ Win+C. Now, ⊞ Win+C will copy text. If you do not specify a targeted application in PowerToys Keyboard Manager, the shortcut exchange will be applied globally across Windows.

PowerToys Keyboard Manager must be enabled (with PowerToys running in the background) for remapped keys and shortcuts to be applied. If PowerToys is not running, key remapping will no longer be applied.

The real kicker however, is that the new PowerToys Keyboard Manager can be application specific:

App-specific shortcuts

Keyboard Manager enables you to remap shortcuts for only specific apps (rather than globally across Windows).

For example, in the Outlook email app the shortcut Ctrl+E is set by default to search for an email. If you prefer instead to set Ctrl+F to search your email (rather than forward an email as set by default), you can remap the shortcut with “Outlook” set as your “Target app”.

Keyboard Manager uses the process-names (not application names) to target apps. For example, Microsoft Edge is set as “msedge” (process name), not “Microsoft Edge” (application name). To find an application’s process name, open PowerShell and enter the command get-process or open Command Prompt and enter the command tasklist. This will result in a list of process names for all applications you currently have open.

Related blog posts:

–jeroen

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