Editing Microsoft Windows

{{stub}}

'''Microsoft Windows''' refers to several families of operating system produced by [[Microsoft|Microsoft Corporation]].

All recent versions of Windows derive from Windows NT, introduced in 1993, and share NT's numbering system (Vista is essentially NT 6.0, Windows 7 is 6.1, and Windows 8 is 6.2). The other families (Windows 1/2/3 and Windows 95/98/Millennium) are discontinued.

==Keyboards==
With Windows 95, Microsoft mandated that keyboards for Windows should have two additional keys to the computer keyboard:

*The [[Windows key]], simultaneously a command key ''and'' a [[modifier key]]
*The [[menu key]], technically the application key, although the [[legend]] is always that of a context menu

==Changing keyboard layout==
The main layout is selected in the Control Panel.

===AutoHotkey===
{{Main|AutoHotkey}}
One of the most popular methods for modifying keyboard and mouse behaviour is the third-party, open source application AutoHotkey. Although it provides a huge range of functionality, its main purpose is in rebinding keys and providing key macros.

===Ctrl2Cap v2.0===
A small driver to swap [[caps lock]] and [[control key|control]] at the kernel level.

URL: {{URL|http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897578.aspx}}

=== Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) ===
This is the same tool that Microsoft uses to create your country-specific input language in Windows. Guaranteed to work hitch-free, except in a select few video games that read your keypress scancodes directly.

=== Registry-editing ===
There is a guide to this on http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/misc/Remap.htm#registry

A registry edit works by convincing Windows that, for example, Scancode 038 is actually 072. It is a strategy free of flaws but not easy to undo should you want to switch seamlessly to another layout. Corporate and public machines generally do not let you edit their registry.

[[Category:Operating systems]]