The poor mans remapkey.exe. but still maintained is randyrants/sharpkeys: SharpKeys is a utility that manages a Registry key that allows Windows to remap one key to any other key.
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/09/24
A long time ago I mentioned remapkey.exe. It was part of various Microsoft Resource Kit versions and still available from the Wayback Machine at [Wayback rktools.exe: install, then run remapkey.exe as admin].
It however is unmaintained and does not support quite a few keys.
So for more than 20 years now, there has been the still maintained [Wayback/Archive] randyrants/sharpkeys: SharpKeys is a utility that manages a Registry key that allows Windows to remap one key to any other key.
The user interface is not as intuitive as remapkey.exe (which has source and target keyboard layouts), but supports more keys (including Print Screen) and is still maintained and allows to turn off keys completely (which can be useful with for instance the Caps Lock key).
Back when writing this, the most recent release was 3.9.4 fro 2022. You can find the most current at [Wayback/Archive] Releases · randyrants/sharpkeys.
The first beta of SharpKeys goes back to 2004 which you can find browsing back in the posting category [Wayback/Archive] SharpKeys | randyrants.com.
By now it is available on the Microsoft Store and other installation means:
- [Wayback/Archive] sharpkeys – Microsoft Store Apps
- [Wayback/Archive] Scoop – Apps (sharpkeys)
- [Wayback/Archive] Chocolatey Software | SharpKeys 3.5.0.20180307 (at the time of writing it lagged behind a lot, see the [Wayback/Archive] sharpkeys Issues · ferventcoder/chocolatey-packages)
- [Wayback/Archive] Chocolatey Software | Randyrants Sharpkeys (Portable) 3.9.4
I’m not sure why I only found about it a few years back, but alas I did and now I wrote a blog post on it too (:
Screenshots
RemapKey
SharpKeys
Windows Resource Kit with remapey.exe
[Wayback/Archive] rk-tools.md Windows Resource Kit Tools
Advanced tool-set to streamline administrative tasks for Microsoft® Windows®.
[Wayback/Archive] Sysinternals Newsletter Vol. 2, No. 3 – Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn
the Windows 2000 Resource Kit includes a tool called RemapKey that lets you swap keys around using a graphical representation of the keyboard. This article at Microsoft’s web site talks about the keyboard remapper and how it works: www.microsoft.com/HWDEV/input/W2kscan-map.htm. Note that the tool also works on NT 4.
[Wayback/Archive] Scan Code Mapper for Windows
Windows 2000 and Windows XP include a new Scan Code Mapper, which provides a method that allows for mapping of scan codes. The scan code mappings for Windows are stored in the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control \Keyboard Layout
Since this also works on Windows NT 4, the actual introduction of the Scan Mode Mapper was earlier than mentioned.
Related blog posts
- PowerToys Keyboard Manager utility for Windows | Microsoft Docs
- If you miss having the Caps Lock button on your #Chromebook… (via: Google Chrome – Google+)
Via
- [Wayback/Archive] Grzegorz Tworek on Twitter: “
Win+PrintScreen🥰 FYI: sequentially numbered full screen PNG screenshot goes toPictures\Screenshots. No questions asked, no prompt, just collects the data I can process later.” / Twitter - [Wayback/Archive] windows 8 – Remapping keys without external software – Super User (thanks [Wayback/Archive] ckhan, [Wayback/Archive] Michael and [Wayback/Archive] dbc)
- [Wayback/Archive] Print Screen on Windows 7 with Apple keyboard – Super User (thanks [Wayback/Archive] 2C-B and [Wayback/Archive] and31415)
Queries
- [Wayback/Archive] “remapkey.exe” – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] sharpkeys – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] Sharpkeys printscreen – Google Search
–jeroen
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