Windows 7: Japanese keyboard in English Windows

I am currently in japan so naturally when I bought a new keyboard it is a japanese keyboard. It has romanji and kana on the keys. When I first installed it the system treated it like a normal us keyboard. Also the extra keys that allow you to switch between input modes do not work. I did some searching and found how to get most of the layout correct. However the yen key still does not work. Also the extra japanese keys do not work at all. I have the logicool k200 media keyboard and as I said it is the japanese version. It has 3 extra keys next to the space bar and the key left of 1 which tilde on a normal us keyboard also has japanese symbols on it. Also I used the lang bar after switching the keyboard layout to japanese to switch to kana. After doing this it did type kana symbols but they did not match the kana symbol on the key. I don`t know much japanese yet but I would like to be able to use my keyboard as designed so when I do want to type in japanese I can use the buttons on the keyboard to switch modes and also type the yen character.

Hi eagled2, welcome to the forums


You may have already tried but here goes anyway

1, Open up control panel and click 'Change keyboards or other input methods'


2, Click 'Change keyboards' followed by 'Add'


3, Select 'Japanese' from the dropdown list and click OK


This should no install the driver & layout for the japanese keyboard

Hope it helps


OS

Thank you for the quick reply. I have tried that and now the @ symbol among others is in the correct place. The problem now is that the yen symbol, which is left of the backspace key, types a backslash. Also the extra keys for switching input modes don`t do anything.

Windows seven mistakenly identify some Japanese keyboard as 101-key.

You will need to edit the registry to make it 106-key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

change this entries:

LayerDriver JPN REG_SZ kbd106.dll
OverrideKeyboardIdentifier REG_SZ PCAT_106KEY
OverrideKeyboardSubtype DWORD 2
OverrideKeyboardType DWORD 7

You can check the source if you are still having problems: Japanese Keyboard Not Functioning Correctly After Installing Windows 7

Following the directions from the first reply actually edited those registry settings to match the values you suggested. In addition I have manually set it to those settings in the past. Following those steps does fix the layout. And except for the 2 exceptions I mentioned previously the keys now work as they should. My yen key still is looked at as a backslash as well as my backslash key. Also the buttons for switching input methods to non roman characters do not do anything. Any other ideas to fix this problem?

maybe a dumb question but did the keyboard come with specific drivers, on a cd or something?

That is a good question actually. It did not come with any drivers. Naturally my first idea was to check online for a better driver. I checked the manufacturers website and they say no drivers are needed as it uses the built in drivers.

ehhhhhh worth a shot, im sure someone here will come up with the solution eventually

I have the same issue... found this solution on Microsoft. Just click "Fix it", hopefully everything is solved. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927824