Jun 22, 2007

Disable the Windows Key

I have been using Parallels for some time now and one annoying thing I keep running into is that when I use cmd+tab or cmd+anything while Parallels is active, Windows thinks that I'm hitting their windows key and pops up my start menu.

Since I never use a hot key for the start menu, I started to look for a way to disable it. Sure enough, I found a way. I found this web site that shows you how to do it. Basically it's a registry hack. So I created a reg file that can be imported that does the trick. Create a file with a .reg extension. Then add the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,5B,E0,00,00,5C,E0,00,00,00,00

Save the file and then double-click it in Windows and, of course, reboot. I know this worked on Windows XP. I'm not sure if it will work on Vista.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found you can accomplish the same thing by installing Microsoft IntelliType in the Windows VM and then disabling the Windows key in the keyboard setup.

Anonymous said...

Worked like a charm. THANK YOU!!!

-Mason