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I am trying to figure out if there is some built in way to disable the built in hotkeys in windows 7 enterprise? For instance, when I hit F1 it pops up the help window in windows, or a new tab in firefox with firefox help, f3 opens search window etc. I use these keys for many other things, this is really a problem for me.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
IT' actually really simple if You have vista or windows 7. Just in start search bar write "mobility" and look in search results for " Windows mobility center". A window will open. find Fuction key in that and select "Function Key" instead of "multimedia"(or any thing else) and that's it.
THIS LOCKED MY F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 AND SO ON KEYS. I GOT THIS FROM ANOTHER WEBSITE FROM SOMEONE ELSE THIS SHOULD HELP YOU NIGTHER SMITTER
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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I play a game on addictinggames.com called invasion 3 and the F1 button send out the infantry or at least it should but when I press the button the damn help window pops up and I have found ways around it but lately all that happens is the window pops up. I want to get rid of the help window because if I want windows help I can use the internet to ask for help. Why must the F1 button be wasted on something I can do without the F1 button? I like windowslivebogus want to get the F1 button to be just a normal button like the g button or the t button. If anyone knows of a way to make it a normal useful button please tell us how.
This Guy just Dosn't get it. He keep refering to win+ keys. we keep refering to f1 window key (not win+f1) that pops up the help window(this is built into the windows operating system and not the program) if you press f1 no matter where u r you get the help window in the windows operating system. how do you disable that. i do not need windows f1-12 fuctions, i would like to be able to press f4 and get my assighned key or program instead of the menu bar in ie.
The active program gets to choose what to do with the F keys. They are in complete control. Windows does not, and has not ever, controlled what happens when you press F1in some other program. If you click the desktop (so that the desktopis the active program), pressing F1 will launch help, because that's what the desktop was designed to do.
But if you open another program, it gets to do whatever it wants when you press F1.
The reason it shows help when you press it on the website is that you're browseris the active program, so it gets to intercept that button and do whatever it wants with it.
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I want to post my 2 cents on this and see if anyone can correlate a similar experience. I like to play video games when I get time to myself and one of the games that I play is Worlds of Warcraft. I use the F-Keys to chose specific players that I need to target to cast a healing spell or a cleansing spell of some kind. I recently installed WoW on my windows 7 machine a couple of days ago and every time I hit any of the F-keys my computer would put up the help dialog box and interrupt my raid or it would pop up a dialog asking me how to configure multiple displays.
This is a HUGE issue for me. I don't want to use Windows 7 any more. Vista did not have this problem, when I had my app open, when I hit F1 it would target myself in raid group, or f2 it would target the next guy down in the raid group, etc.
I don't know why this isn't working - seems like the function key shortcuts are programmed in such a way that what they do takes precidence over what you want it to do in a different application. I will check the hot keys when I get a chance and see if perhaps there is something in the WOW control interface that allows me to change the function of what the f keys do - change it from whatever the default might be - but this is a serious serious serious problem and I cannot use my machine to play this game and be efficient. I am a healer and I embarassed myself as we wiped in a simple 5 man instance (and I have a 6k gearscore)
FIX IT PLEASE!!!! MICROSOFT!!!! THANKS!
