I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite, and, for the most part, I love it. It has a good feel and doesn't take much desk space. The rearranging of the navigation keys took some getting used to, of course, but that was a long time ago. What don't I like about this keyboard? Well, it would be cool if it had USB ports on it, but I can live without that. Also, the keyboard is extremely sensitive to liquids, so I have to be extra careful not to keep water nearby.

The only other thing I sometimes wish for are those cool multimedia keys on the new keyboards. In particular, the Play/Pause key seems like a great way to interrupt whatever music you happen to be listening to. However, I have a coworker with the Natural Multimedia Keyboard, and there are lots of things about it that would drive me nuts, so I'm not going to get one of those. (What exactly? Well, for starters, "enhanced F-key functionality," the navigation keys are rearranged again, there's no Insert key above the arrow keys (call me crazy, but I still use Ctrl+Insert to copy from time to time), and the right Windows key is missing, which makes Win+L more difficult to type (to lock the workstation), and shifts the right Ctrl key to the left, leaving an empty space where that key should be.)

In any case, there must be a point here somewhere, because this isn't really supposed to be a keyboard review. Well, I ran into Chris Sells' Scancode Mapper while browsing around and wondered if I could use it to convert a key that I never use, say, the Scroll Lock key, to work like the Play/Pause key on the multimedia keyboards. It looked promising, but alas, it didn't work. I didn't give up, though, and after doing some additional research, I figured out how to do it!

First, download and run Scancode Mapper. Use it to map "Scroll" to "MediaPlayPause", and commit the changes. Note that it has actually mapped the Scroll Lock key to G; I suppose this would classify as a bug, but I haven't looked at the code. In any case, exit Scancode Mapper and fire up the Registry Editor. Head over to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Keyboard Layout", and edit the "Scancode Map" value. Feel free to read the documentation for this registry value, as it uses a very simple format. The problem is that Scroll (46) is being mapped to G (22) instead of Play/Pause (e0 22). So, simply replace the "00" after the "22" with an "e0", and you're good to go. The binary editor inserts anything you type by default, so be sure you've replaced and not added. I shouldn't have to mention that you edit the Registry at your own risk; it's a dangerous business, so be careful! (For reference, here's my data, which defines only the one mapping: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 22 e0 46 00 00 00 00 00)

Anyway, once you've rebooted, your Scroll Lock key is now a Play/Pause key. Have fun!

Update: Minor correction, as described in the comments.

Update: Changed category to Keyboard.