Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Y’know that "Windows" key that you’ve seen on people’s keyboards – it’s got the Windows logo on it.  Maybe you’ve used it.  Maybe you haven’t.  Maybe your keyboard doesn’t even have one and you’ve never really cared.  Well, it turns out that Windows Vista uses it – heck, practically requires it – for a bunch of things. 

 

For example, if you have Aero Glass on your Windows Vista system, there’s a feature of the desktop that allows you to "three dimensionally" rotate through your running applications and windows.  (You’ve probably seen the demo at one time or another – the windows ‘leap up’ and line themselves up in a diagonal row, and pressing the up and down arrows allows you to flip through the applications, "rotating" the rolodex of running windows.  The problem is that running this feature requires "WinKey-Tab".  If you don’t have the WinKey, well… good luck.

 

Here’s a way that you can remap the "right Alt" key of your keyboard to become your own "Windows key":

– Open RegEdt32.exe

– Go to HKey_LocalMachine – SYSTEM – CurrentControlSet – Control – Keyboard Layout 
– Create a new Binary entry and name it "Scancode Map"

– Set it with the following data:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 5B EO 38 EO 00 00 00 00 
– Reboot

 

That’s it.  The right Alt key (not the left) should be mapped to be the Windows key.  And if you have Aero Glass, you should be able to press it, along with the TAB key (hold down your new WinKey) to flip through your running applications using the arrow keys.