Keyboard-remapping in guest´s registry does not work

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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MarkFalk
Posts: 29
Joined: 11. Mar 2021, 19:16

Keyboard-remapping in guest´s registry does not work

Post by MarkFalk »

Hi,
I am new in using VB. Because my PC does not support VT I habe to use VB 6.0.24, Host-OS is Win10-64 Pro, 1709. Guest-OS are WinXP SP3 and Win7 SP1.
Since the "old times" I am using the old keyboard-layout with <home> and <end> left and <ins> and <del> in the center of the cursor-block. When the mf-keyboards becoming standard I exchanged the keypads and remapped the layout in the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\Scancode Map) with exchanging <home>/<ins> and <end>/<del> - attached you find the .reg-files for this remapping and for deleting this remapping, if sb wants to use it.
This works until now perfectly.
But this does not work in the VMs. It doesn´t matter whether the content of the "Scancode Map" value in the guest´s registry is "original" (=untouched) or remapped - the bevaviour is the same: The original keyboard-layout, <home>/<ins> and <end>/<del> are not exchanged. And in regard of the guests it doesn´t matter whether the host´s registry is "original" or remapped.
So the situation is that is is not possible to modify the guest´s keyboard-layout by remapping via the registry, neither the host´s registry nor the guest´s registry.
Is there any explanation - and solution - for this?
Attachments
keybchange.rar
(472 Bytes) Downloaded 9 times
fth0
Volunteer
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Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Keyboard-remapping in guest´s registry does not work

Post by fth0 »

I used a Windows 10 (64-bit) host, VirtualBox 6.1.18 and a Windows 10 (64-bit) guest, and added your Scancode Map manually to the guest OS registry. After rebooting, it worked as expected. I'm aware that our setups have several differences, of course. Some ideas to try:

For a test, try switching the "1" and "2" keys (02, 00, 03, 00, 03, 00, 02, 00), to rule out any potential special key behavior.

You can use Keyboard Event Viewer on the host and in the guest to check for any key code changes.

I have one additional hint, just in case: Whereas the extra home key usually generates the scancode E047, the home key on the numeric keypad usually generates the scancode 0047. Check if the NumLock state influences that behavior.
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