Spriglet #8:Hack the buttons on a Dell SK-8135 Keyboard

August 23, 2007 in spriglets,technology with 9 Comments


Dell SK-8135

Just bought a new Dell SK-8135 keyboard off of eBay.  I have one at work and like it a lot.

It has some buttons on it that are sort-of configurable — if you don’t mind poking around in the Windows Registry.

Start -> Run -> regedit

Browse to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey

  • 7 =  Browser home button – this will launch the default browser (which should be Firefox, BTW)
  • 15 = Mail button  – this will launch the default mail app.
  • 16 = Music note button – this will launch the application associated with the .cda extension.  I changed this one to .mp3, which is associated with iTunes.
  • 17 = My Computer button
  • 8 =  Calculator button

Make your changes, reboot and you’re good to go.

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9 Responses to “Spriglet #8:Hack the buttons on a Dell SK-8135 Keyboard”

  1. Patrick January 22, 2008 at 3:08 pm #

    Hi there. So good so far. How do I get the next track, last track, play and stop symbols to work with my player? XMPlay does have key commands but I need to get these programmed to these keys on the keyboard.

    Reply
  2. wvpv January 22, 2008 at 4:03 pm #

    I would imagine that if your media player doesn’t have some sort of keyboard controls, then it won’t work.

    Also, the application has to have screen focus for it to work. That’s the way it is with Windows Media Player and iTunes. I have my music button set to open iTunes. All the keys work, but they aren’t global or anything.

    Here’s some more programming info.

    Reply
  3. Umm, whah? January 29, 2008 at 10:37 am #

    This keyboard works with Windows Media without focus for me. The whole point of those buttons is to launch/control apps without having to use the mouse. What good is it if you have to use the mouse to gain focus first?

    Reply
  4. eric April 12, 2008 at 10:51 am #

    hey, i have this keyboard that you have wrote about above, and i could not find a way of editing the music player recall button. thanx to you and this blog of yours, i have the write music played opening. so all i’m leaving this comment for is: thank you very much! lol i hated hitting that button by accident then having some music play that i didn’t want opening. thank you

    Reply
  5. Brian April 17, 2008 at 11:07 am #

    For itunes, you can also change the file association to .itl (iTunes Library) – just in case you don’t have mp3 mapped to itunes. Thanks for your post!

    Reply
  6. Me June 17, 2008 at 11:20 am #

    4 is the Stop key – I used it to run the ‘lock workstation’ command

    Reply
  7. Djf November 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm #

    holy FRICK
    i cant even believed this worked lol, i followed the opening sequence and it practically solved itself. my music key button used to open with WMP, but i downloaded Real player for particular reasons, and the key i assume reassinged itself to Real player. Its been bugging me forever when i want fast music. Most of my music files are in .wma format, so i just swapped the .cda with .wma. rebooted, problem solved. works great thanks alot!

    Reply
  8. MethodicJon February 2, 2010 at 6:37 pm #

    I dumped the calculator icon for

    rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

    Which locks the workstation

    Reply

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