How to possibly remove Media Center? And re-assigning of FN keys.

Bro · Nov 2, 2011

How to remove Media Center? And re-assigning of FN keys.

So, I don't know how appreciative you guys on this board would be when I say I would like to remove Media Center from my system (LOL). I don't use it for anything, so I'd like to know if there's anyway to get it off of my system at all.

And while I'm making this thread, I was curious to know if there's anyway to re-assign those function keys--shown in the attached photo--to another media program, such as Zune perhaps? I ask since, by default, these keys are assigned to Media Center.

Thanks, and sorry if the function key question doesn't belong on this board.

Sub Styler · Nov 2, 2011

To remove media center, go to control panel, programs and features, click the "turn windows features on or off" link, then remove media centre in there.

As for the FN key assignment, you can try typing "set your default programs" into the start menu and selecting zune then make it default player for all it can. If that doesnt work, there may be a utility for your keyboard that can re-assign it. I had a keyboard a long time ago with one.

Bro · Nov 2, 2011

Sub Styler said:
To remove media center, go to control panel, programs and features, click the "turn windows features on or off" link, then remove media centre in there.

As for the FN key assignment, you can try typing "set your default programs" into the start menu and selecting zune then make it default player for all it can. If that doesnt work, there may be a utility for your keyboard that can re-assign it. I had a keyboard a long time ago with one.

Hey Sub Styler,

I successfully removed MC thanks to you, however I'm wondering where I can get such a utility for my keyboard? I mean, are there any that work with generic laptop keyboards?

Thanks,
Bro

strollin · Nov 2, 2011

You might try SharpKeys 2.1.1 to remap those function keys.

Bro · Nov 2, 2011

strollin said:
You might try SharpKeys 2.1.1 to remap those function keys.

Hey Strollin,

Thanks for that registry hack, although I don't see a way to re-map the keys to a program. I've restarted and checked several times to see if the keys have now mapped to Zune, since I've removed both MC and WMP. Unfortunately, now the FN keys for media do nothing. Can SharpKeys help me out with this?

Thanks,
Bro

carwiz · Nov 2, 2011

Those keys are your arrow keys. Have you checked to see if they work pressing the FN key first?

If not, you can map the keys to the Zune functions but I would use an additional key like CTL, ALT, SHIFT, etc so you can retain the arrow funtions.

Here's Zune's short cut keys. Use SharpKeys to map your keys to Zune's functions. (Map to the characters in the right column.)

Bro · Nov 2, 2011

carwiz said:
Those keys are your arrow keys. Have you checked to see if they work pressing the FN key first?

If not, you can map the keys to the Zune functions but I would use an additional key like CTL, ALT, SHIFT, etc so you can retain the arrow funtions.

Here's Zune's short cut keys. Use SharpKeys to map your keys to Zune's functions. (Map to the characters in the right column.)

Hey Carwiz,

Of course I tried FN keys first. With MC and WMP removed, they don't do jack now. I tried using SharpKeys to re-map those shortcuts that your attached screenshot showed, but it seems SharpKeys doesn't play nice with remapping one key to a two key shortcut. So, it wouldn't let me, say, remap the down arrow key (for play/pause) to the CTRL+P shortcut. Am I missing something here, or is this as far as SharpKeys' functionality goes? If so, anything else I can do? Thanks for bearing with me on this, lol.

Thanks,
Bro

carwiz · Nov 3, 2011

That's about the extent of my knowledge. Hopefully, one of the other guys will jump back in with help on SharpKeys.

I use an IR remote.

Bro · Nov 3, 2011

carwiz said:
That's about the extent of my knowledge. Hopefully, one of the other guys will jump back in with help on SharpKeys.

I use an IR remote.

Well, I greatly appreciate the assistance you provided. Especially with providing the shortcuts for Zune.

Sub Styler · Nov 3, 2011

Perhaps this will work? I haven't tried it myself yet but I will later. My media key launches resource hacker ..... ooops.

HotKeyz - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

shadow360 · Nov 3, 2011

....... given the state of your laptop i am going to start with a repair.

Step 1 Remove remapping programs and restore your keys to there natural state
Step 2 open zune and find the place where you find the shortcut keys / can remap them

step 3 in zune map your fn keys directly to zune "press and hold the fn key and hit the play pause to map that key to play/pause"

Programming speaking its pointless to remap an fn key to anything other then its original state insten in the program remap the key to what you want it to do

Also you should have checked this befor removing WMC but zune and WMC can be linked to function as one program same can be said for WMC and WMP

Bro · Nov 5, 2011

shadow360 said:
....... given the state of your laptop i am going to start with a repair.

Step 1 Remove remapping programs and restore your keys to there natural state
Step 2 open zune and find the place where you find the shortcut keys / can remap them

step 3 in zune map your fn keys directly to zune "press and hold the fn key and hit the play pause to map that key to play/pause"

Programming speaking its pointless to remap an fn key to anything other then its original state insten in the program remap the key to what you want it to do

Also you should have checked this befor removing WMC but zune and WMC can be linked to function as one program same can be said for WMC and WMP

Well, thankfully I didn't remap anything using SharpKeys, so I went ahead and removed it.

Anyway, I'm not sure how to map keys and the like for Zune using Zune; so, if you can tell me how, that would be great, lol.

I had no idea I could have WMC and Zune linked to function as one program. I'll go ahead and put it back on my machine to screw around with it and see if I can figure out how to do that.

UPDATE: Couldn't find how to link Zune up with WMC through either of their settings menus. :c

Sub Styler · Nov 5, 2011

OK those utilities were not much help for me, The only success I have had so far is by manually editing the registry, You should make a backup of the registry before you do this. To do so open regedit select "computer" at the root of the tree and export it somewhere nice and safe.

The part of the registry we are looking at is:

"Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\"

The following details will probably vary from keyboard to keyboard but my "Music" button previously did nothing (well it opened resource hacker but that because this was the default application for opening DLL's) but now it launches my media player winamp!

Under the "subfoder" numbered 16 (may vary for you) it had the string value "association" with the data .cda, this basically tell windows that when this button (related to subfolder 16 in my case the music button) is pressed do whatever you associate with .cda extentions (music cd's) and although winamp is set to handle this, nothing happened.

So i renamed the registry key "Associate" to "ShellExecute" and modified the data from .cda to winamp.exe (if it doesn't work you may need to use the full file-path).

I hope this is what you were looking for, as far as I know this just controls the launch of the application and not the skip, pause etc although winamp already has other keys bound to those functions that I have been using for years and old dogs don't like new tricks.

Bro · Nov 6, 2011

Sub Styler said:
OK those utilities were not much help for me, The only success I have had so far is by manually editing the registry, You should make a backup of the registry before you do this. To do so open regedit select "computer" at the root of the tree and export it somewhere nice and safe.

The part of the registry we are looking at is:

"Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey\"

The following details will probably vary from keyboard to keyboard but my "Music" button previously did nothing (well it opened resource hacker but that because this was the default application for opening DLL's) but now it launches my media player winamp!

Under the "subfoder" numbered 16 (may vary for you) it had the string value "association" with the data .cda, this basically tell windows that when this button (related to subfolder 16 in my case the music button) is pressed do whatever you associate with .cda extentions (music cd's) and although winamp is set to handle this, nothing happened.

So i renamed the registry key "Associate" to "ShellExecute" and modified the data from .cda to winamp.exe (if it doesn't work you may need to use the full file-path).

I hope this is what you were looking for, as far as I know this just controls the launch of the application and not the skip, pause etc although winamp already has other keys bound to those functions that I have been using for years and old dogs don't like new tricks.

With some variation here and there, I managed to actually get this done for Zune. Like you had stated, not what I was looking for, but boy is this handy. Thanks for the effort, it's greatly appreciated either way!

+1 rep for that great reg hack.

Adoboy · Jul 1, 2012

@Bro

Not to resurrect a dead post, but how did you end up remapping those keys?

How to possibly remove Media Center? And re-assigning of FN keys.

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