I thought that F1 has always opened help, since the days of Windows 3.1 over 15 years ago...
...are you saying you have a program that uses F1 for something else, and that program stopped working now that you're using it with Windows 7? If so, try running the program in compatibility mode for Windows Vista (or 98, 2000, or XP) and see if it behaves
properly.
Windows doesn't control this, by the way: The F keys do whatever the program wants them to do. For example, F12 does absolutely nothing in most programs, but if you're using Office, that opens the Save box. Same with all the other keys. For example, F5
refreshes most web browsers, but it's used for something entirely different when you're in iTunes.
Windows 7 didn't cause the behavior you see, it's been this way for decades.
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