As I’ve said in my last few posts about my new Dell Mini 9 I was frustrated with the keyboard layout. The ‘apostrophe/quotation mark’ key was moved down to next to the left arrow key. This just wasn’t cutting it for me.
The semicolon/colon is still where it is supposed to be and it got me to thinking… I don’t really use the semicolon key much. Really, I barely use it at all. I do however use the apostrophe key all the damn time. Who doesn’t use contractions all the time? Seriuosly, I’m just a readneck medic and I don’t do proper grammar….
So, I began looking for my options. As it turns out, Microsoft has a program just for this.Microsoft Keyboard Layout creator. Version 1.3 works on XP and older, 1.4 with Vista. The problem is there really are no instructions on how to use it. So I figured it out all by myself!
It is pretty damn simple though…
Simply install the program and then follow these steps.
Once you’ve finished running the program setup open it up from the start menu. Next click on File and then “load existing keyboard”. This will pull your existing keyboard up on the screen.
A screen pops up asking you to select which keyboard you want to load, choose the US keyboard.
Now, find the key you want to remap. It won’t look exactly like yours on screen. I just push the key that I want to change. Then click on it, and on the right press ALL. I decided that I wanted to change the semicolon key to the apostrophy key, and vice versa. You will have to fill in the second box to fill it in for the Shift+ key as well. It will autofill the unicode in where you type the normal key. Just type the key you used and it will show up, then be replaced by unicode.
Then click ok. Next go to FILE and push SAVE Source file. Once you’ve done that go to the Project tab on the top menu bar. Click BUILD DLL AND SETUP PACKAGE. It will take a minute and you will see a menu asking if you would like to see the files. Click yes. 
Next, find the icon that describes your computer. For standard Intel processors Use the i386. Click to open. It may take a minute to get it complete.
After this it was a little confusing for me. Basically you have two keyboards installed now(or I did something wrong). I thought nothing had changed. So I did a quick RESTART and still no change. Then I noticed the Language bar was on the bottom toolbark, with a keyboard Icon. I clicked it and the option for my US CUSTOM keyboard. Select that. Then click settings. Go into settings and remove the old keyboard that you aren’t using anymore.
You will have to restart for this to take effect. Upon restart you should be where you want to be! You can use this to remap any key. You can get rid of CAPS lock(make it another shift key), etc.
Once you’ve done all of this you can even pop the keys off and put them where you have remapped them to be. I haven’t done this yet but it looks pretty standard like most laptops.
This took me all of 7 minutes to do–and that was while I was figuring it out!
Any questions: medicthree@gmail.com
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