Windows 7 - MCE remote behaving strangely

Yesterday I purchased a MCE remote from Fractal Design, Fractal Design - Products

The problem is that when I plug it in the mouse function works perfectly, but none of the other buttons have any effect in Windows 7. I tried the remote on my other computer with Vista and it worked liked a charm.

From what I understand the remote works as a combined mouse and keyboard and therefore ads itself to the device manager both as a HID mouse and HID keyboard. None of them stats any errors but still the "keyboard part" of the remote doesn't work

Anyone having any idea of what could be wrong?

MCE remotes use two drivers. One is the ehome driver under hid, the other is the CIR driver under usb devices. The ehome driver is responsible for all the keyboard functions and how it works with the windows interface. I would see if the version matches the one that vista is using. For me I just disabled the ehome driver and only use the CIR driver with the program eventghost. It lets me control anything I want how I want with the remote.

Each brand of remote sends a unique code that has to be in the list of codes that windows expects or that button will not work. I suspect that is what you are experiencing.

Problem solved!

If I don't have a keyboard connected to the computer while I start Windows it works. Fortunately this is not an issue as I control the HTPC with the remote only

Problem circumvented but not solved.

There will be situations when you will need a keyboard (bios, remote + mouse not working, MCE not starting.)
You can only control MCE with the remote, not Windows 7 itself.

Best thing to try is to put usb connector in other usb port and let windows automatically re-detect it.

Note:
The keyboard part of the remote only works in instances where keyboard input is required.

The remote actually emulates a mouse and a keyboard so it works in Windows and the keyboard can even be used during start up (chosing "safe mode" ect). If I need to do more advanced stuff I just quickly plugin the keyboard to one of the front USB-ports.

So for me cirumventing is fine