This article was written when Boot Camp had limited device driver support and is now therefore out of date.
There are a few annoyances with the MacBook Pro keyboard when in use under Windows XP via BootCamp. The lack of back lighting and the swapped Windows/Alt keys I can't help with but the getting the Fn key operational, replacing Alt-Gr and switching misplaced symbols I can.
Misplaced symbols (UK keyboards)
The UK keyboards don't quite work as expected so I've put together a couple of key maps to solve the problems.
For the most part the keyboard act as a normal UK Windows keyboard, i.e. # is next to the enter key and " are up on shift-2. One key however isn't right and that's \ which should be next to Z but can be found up by 1.
MacBook Pro UK Windows Keymap solves this backslash problem and is recommended for experience Windows laptop touch-typists.
MacBook Pro UK Mac Keymap makes the keyboard operate as it is labelled and indeed how it operates in OS X. Experienced Mac users, non touch-typists or consistency seekers - this is the one for you. (Note that # is Ctrl-Alt-3 as per OS X)
Installing these key maps
Download the above file and ensure you unpack the ZIP - you'll get an error if you try and run the MSI from inside the ZIP as there is another file inside the i386 folder that it needs.
Once installed head into Control Panel > Regional and Language Options then go to the Language tab and press Details...
Click Add... and choose input language English (United Kingdom) and the appropriate keyboard layout of either United Kingdom (MacBook Windows) or United Kingdom (MacBook Mac).
Click OK then choose English (United Kingdom) - United Kingdom (MacBook ... from the drop-down box under Default input language and finally hit OK!
Getting the Fn key to work
Input Remapper lets you remap various keys but most importantly comes preconfigured and with a driver to enable the "fn" key on the MacBook while in Windows.Volume, brightness, eject, numlock, page up/down, home and end will work just as you'd expect. Additionally fn+backspace will delete, fn+eject will print screen, the odd key to the right of the Apple logo will provide context menu and pressing fn while clicking the track pad will give you right mouse clicks so no need for AppleMouse.
Have fun!
[)amien
Great tips - thanks!
Many thanks for the fix. How can I get the F7 ket to work - connectiong tp a projector?
Sounds like just what I'm looking for, except... I'm getting a "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)" error on both of the Keymap links :(
Ah ha! Links good now.
Tried it out on my iMac with a standard Apple Pro Keyboard to see how it would fare...
Couple of minor hiccups: The keys left of 1 and Z seem to be transposed. And the = key on the keypad seems to be sending a carriage return.
Apart from that, its all good!
Many thanks,
J.
Oh, one onther thing not mentioned in your post in case people trying this have probs... I had to do a reboot after setting the new keymap to get it to work.
This is because my Keymap was made before Apple release their key remapper.
As such my keymap switches them round and then so does the Apple utility. So they end up back where they started - i.e. wrong.
[)amien
Hi there,
I read your blog with great interest as I have just got myself a macbook pro with Parallels on it and the keyboard is driving me crazy. However the link to your file MacBookProUKMacKeymap.zip does not work. Is there any small chance of you fixing this?
Best
Scouser
Sorry, I don't even have these files any more - it was a long time ago.
[)amien