Mapping a peculiar keyboard key to start program

thx1139 · 04 Jan 2011

My laptop has a button which used to trigger software (Acer PowerSmart Manager) which was supposed to reduce power consumption through undisclosed methods. The program was an irritation since it overrode screen brightness settings (actually making the screen brighter than I wanted it) and could not be customised so I uninstalled it. I would like to reasign the button to opening a program called GameBooster which I can use to close down many programs at once and restart them all again at a suitable time. The problem is that I don't know a) how to find out the scan code of this peculiar key (I think it might actually simulate two or more regular keys being pressed at the same time) nor b) how to make this trigger the execution of the GameBooster program (preferably without running an additional application). Surely Windows 7 has the capacity do this built in?

monkeylove · 13 Jan 2012

I found a program called Keytweak and found the scan code for a special key, but it can only map to another key.

MilesAhead · 13 Jan 2012

See AutoHotKey
AutoHotkey Community - Mouse and Keyboard Macros and Hotkeys

If you have the scan code you can set it to do some action or even launch programs using the Run command.
As example, where xxx is some scan code for a key:

SCxxx & UP::Run,Explorer

the & UP means it fires when you release the key rather than on key press.

You can "compile" the script so it has AutoHotkey interpreter inside the exe. Avoids having autohotkey installed on the machine to use the script. Several of my utilities are just AHK compiled scripts that sit in the Task Tray waiting for a hotkey press.