Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows Vista
The caps lock key is one of those remnants of another age of computers, back when people used to shout at each other more often. Since it's not entirely useful anymore we'll learn how to disable it. If you aren't interested in the explanation you can skip to the bottom for the registry files.
Windows doesn't have a default setting to allow for disabling the key, so what we have to do is re-map the key to something non-existent so as to completely disable it.
Here's the format of the binary data, with the important parts in bold and various colors:
00000000 00000000 0200000000 00003A00 00000000
Here's how it works:
- The first 16 zeros are just there to waste space.
- The "02″ in bold represents how many keys you are going to re-map plus 1. (It really represents the length of the data, but whatever)
- The orange bolded "0000″ is the key we actually want Windows to map TO, which in this case is nothing, or 0.
- The blue bolded "3A00″ is the key we are mapping from, in this case the caps lock key.
- The next 8 zeros are there to waste space as the null terminator.
You can map between multiple keys by incrementing the "02″ and then adding another of the colorful bold blocks in the middle. The 3A00 in the mix is the scan code. For example, if you wanted to disable the caps lock key and then change scroll lock into a caps lock key:
00000000 00000000 0300000000 00003A00 3A004600 00000000
Now that you've learned how these things work internally, you can download and extract the zipfile which contains the following files:
| ChangeCapsToControl.reg | Changes Caps Lock to be a Control key |
| ChangeCapsToShift.reg | Changes Caps Lock to be a Shift key |
| SwitchCapsToScrollLock.reg | Disables Caps Lock and swaps Scroll lock to be Caps Lock |
| KillCapsLock.reg | Disables Caps Lock |
| DisableKeyboardRemap | Uninstalls the preference by deleting the key |
Once you've applied one of these registry files, you'll have to reboot your computer for it to work. To uninstall, you can use the uninstall registry tweak, or you can simply delete the Scancode Map key entirely.
Download Keyboard Mappings Registry Tweaks
Update: Thanks to lisa for pointing out - This should work in any version of Windows, including XP. We specialize in Vista here, so I often forget to mention that =)
Awesome tip, Geek. Great for my hubby, who has a Vista laptop. My laptop is still on XP and I have the key set so it sounds a beep upon caps lock. Only problem is, I usually have my sound turned off. So do you or perhaps anyone else know any way to disable caps lock key in Windows XP? I'd LOVE that.
Lisaweb,
Doh! I completely forgot to add something saying that it should also work in any other version of Windows as well. Will update!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
I installed your "ChangeCapsToShift.reg" registry tweak on my XP Laptop, and it works perfectly! I couldn't be happier! I live with a crooked pinkie, and Caps Lock has plagued me for years. You've earned a fan for life! I'm gonna save the file so I can install it on future machines as well. Thanks Geek!
I don't recommend using this because, when you are talking with Kids you are going to press the SHIFT key so many times…
is there a way to map a key to be a combination of other keys? for example, changing my capslock to winkey+d or some other combination like that?
combinations should be remapped by external utilities (that are launcher all day-long), such as autohotkey.
the mine problem is that i cannot map "pause" to "home" on my laptop since "pause" is quite a queer key
I believe that there is on too may "00″ after the "02″ or the "03″ in your example. There file may be correct, but I think the count or length has one too many "00″ after it. Thanks!
I used the change caps to shift and it works great. Thanks.
I have a new lap-top but there is no caps lock key on the keyboard. Is there any combination of keys that turns letters to capital from small and the opposite?
Just in case someone else may need this: If you don't need to disable the Caps Lock key, but you want to have the Shift Key turn it off instead (which I much prefer because I actually use the Caps Lock key. Seldom, but I do), this is the procedure:
Control Panels > text Services and Input Languages > Advanced Key Settings > To turn off Caps Lock: Press Shift Key - Radio Button.
This way, there is much less of a chance, especially in the English language, to press Shift and turn off Caps Lock before long.
Microsoft, keeps on hiding and changing the location of this switch, but it's one of my first tweaks on a new computer.
I'm not sure if I do it right. I downloaded, extracted and run the killcapslock and it says that some of the keys are in use by the system and can't be changed. nothing happened.
Hi, thanks for the TIp.
CapsLock has been irritating me for EVER.
Sadly, the Reg file to Kill it, or remap it (to scroll lock) seemed to do nothing.
Any advice?
(running VistaHP x64+SP1)
I was wondering if there was any way to remap the enter key. Recently I spilled water on my keyboard(I have a gateway running windows 2000xp) and the only button that was affected was the enter key. I think i shorted the circut to that key and am left without an enter key. Is there any codes like this one i can download to remap that key to say F1 or something like that?
also not mentioned in the post above it is a laptop computer. So i dont have any other enter buttons because there is no num pad.
@Zachary
You can use this to remap the key: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....-xp-vista/
Hmm, iv tried using that before. I just tried again, I will write out the steps, maybe im doing something wrong? opened the program and for MAP THIS KEY I chose Special: Enter[00_1C] and chose to map it to Arrow: Down[E0_50]. clicked Write to Registry and it said i should exit out or shutdown for changes to be made. I exited the program and restarted my computer but even now the down arrow key does nothing. Will it not work on the Enter button because it is a special key? Not really sure what to do, iv tried a couple different key remapping programs none have worked yet.
Any suggestions after the above post?
Hi Geek!
Thanks for the tip.
For those of us that are having troubles with this, or want an easier way try KaneBT Caps Lock Disabler.
(Type KaneBT caps lock disabler into google)
What would be the best way to disable the f2 key in Windows? My key is stuck-on or faulty and I guess the keyboard needs replacing as it's also not working at boot (fortunately there's another way to enter bios setup). Once windows in booted any time an icon is selected it wants to rename it, other annoyances occur elsewhere, until I do an alt-click, but it comes back. For that I thought it would be useful to disable it entirely via software/registry until I replace the keyboard.
I read on some other site that for laptops the key codes could be different …
Sharpkeys does the job - you can remap or disable any key
On a lenovo thinkpad R61 the mapping from Fn to Strg does not seem to work. The Fn key is recognized correctly by the type key function