French keyboard layout for Windows

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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vodoomoth
Posts: 4
Joined: 4. May 2010, 12:38
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Windows XP

French keyboard layout for Windows

Post by vodoomoth »

Hi all,
this post is just for contributing a FRENCH keyboard layout for Windows guest VMs so that what you see on your MBP's keyboard is indeed what the apps receive in the VM.

I spent a couple of hours reading the VirtualBox manual, searching the web and downloading things before succeeding. Here's what I did:
- downloaded an existing layout for Mac from florentpillet dot com. It wasn't perfect because the "@#" key (left of "&1") was outputting "<>" (left of "w"), and vice-versa (I'm using a unibody 15" MBP).
- downloaded and installed Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MKLC)
- exchanged the keys that were apparently switched
- built the setup package from the layout creator
- added the keyboard layout to the package and zipped it.

Just click setup.exe to install the keyboard. Alternatively, you may also download the MKLC from MSDN and repeat the changes I made. You'll notice that the '@' and '<' characters are correctly placed on the diagram shown in the MKLC, but when trying them, the key that's tagged '@' on your physical keyboard and on the virtual one outputs a '<'. To have the '@' key translate to a '@' in the Win VM, you'll need to tag the virtual '<' with '@'. Vice-versa. And don't forget the "Shift" shiftstate.

Last thing, the keyboard layout is labeled 'fr_CH' because this allows "Shift+é" to yield a "2" while "CAPS LOCK+é" yields a "É". In fr_FR, "CAPS LOCK+é" yields the same as "Shift+é".
Attachments
MacBook Pro Keyboard (FR) for Windows VMs.zip
Keyboard layout (fr_CH)
(256.26 KiB) Downloaded 391 times
ralawa
Posts: 2
Joined: 2. Dec 2009, 10:42
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: windows

Re: French keyboard layout for Windows

Post by ralawa »

Thank you, It seems to work great on my french Macbook Pro :)
jpherbien
Posts: 1
Joined: 1. Jun 2010, 14:31
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: XP, linux

Re: French keyboard layout for Windows

Post by jpherbien »

Thanks a million vodoomoth! It works a treat on my MBook 13". Great job!

JPH
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