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Aug 17 2007

Apple new Aluminium keyboard Boot Camp 1.4 Windows drivers

Categories: Hardware Jonx @ 01:08

Because of popular demand and because others are already offering to download the drivers here are the drivers that concerns us directly.

Of course you understand that the official files can be found on Apple's Boot Camp web site. I just provide them here because it is pretty hard for a basic Windows user to get them. The files I provide here are those I extracted myself from the CD. Of course you have to take your own precaution to make sure the files don't have viruses or troyans Laughing Let me know if you think the files have problems.

Thanks to Joan for the link. Go there if you need more drivers.

To make the new keyboard work on your system, first install the keyboard driver:

AppleKeyboardInstaller.exe (1.60 mb)

It supports the following languages : DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, JA, NL and zh_CN.

This will make the standard keys work and some special keys like Next, Pause, Play, Play fast (stay pressed on >>) because they are the same on a PC keyboard.

To make the other keys (sound up, down, eject CD) work you will need the BootCamp control panel. That program is meant to help you configure the different hardware of your mac under Windows.

Get it here:

BootCamp.msi (1.70 mb) 

That program does install a KbdMgr.exe to C:\Program Files\Boot Camp

Unfortunately I don't have mac hardware and because it looks like the Apple programmers expect to find mac hardware the tool is not working perfectly. For example, you cannot open and configure any of the Apple control panel feature. A usefull feature would have been to control the behavior of the fn key.

Thomas is suggesting to change the value of the key at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\KeyMagic\OSXFnBehavior
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\KeyMagic\OSXFnBehavior

Set it to 0 (zero) for off and to 1 for on by default. I have not yet tested this and he says that it may cause problems.

Also a restart of the system may be required. In case you have problems you can try to unplug and plug again your keyboard.

Also the Apple Control panel does sometimes not start automaticaly. Sometimes it crashes. Sometime is makes your PC freeze for about 20 seconds. Sometimes (seldom) Windows freezes definitiveky and will require a hard reset. This is what it does for me.

Sometimes I don't launch the boot Camp control panel because I often press the eject CD key instead of backspace. Because I have an Antec tower with a door hiding the CD slot I have to rush and open the door before the CD is killing itself against the closed door.

Have fun using this and don't hesitate to report problems in Apple's forum. Also you may write to bootcamp@apple.com.

Of course come here to share your tips with us. Thank you.

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Comments

August 19. 2007 00:53

Thanks for the guides and the files. I've got everything working but the insert key which is replaced with the Fn key. On the bootcamp help and websites it says to use the Help key which as far as I see doesn't exist. Any ideas?

Cheers

Fletch

August 19. 2007 08:15

The dashboard is buggy, that is correct. but without it, the special keys are not working. so we need to let it run despite the fact it does not do much.

Jonx

August 19. 2007 09:59

Hello Fletch,
Nice to hear it is also working for you.
I added a new post with a very small tool that you migth find usefull to change the status of the fn key.

Because the Apple control panel does not work for us you cannot do that, other then by changing a key in the registry.

Jonx

August 19. 2007 13:21

Hi
I just buy the aluminum keyboard for my vista, I tried to use it with a French layout, it work well with alphabet characters but all signs don't correspond to the Apple keyboard, even putting the drivers provided here.
Is it normal ?

Tetsujin28

August 19. 2007 14:07

Well I didn't use the installer provided here, I did the complete bootcamp DMG extraction and execute the setup, now the french keyboard layout is correct, the bootcamp dashboard create an error on execution so it can't be use for the moment

Tetsujin28

September 12. 2007 00:03

None of the programs will install on my pc with vista 64-bit

Bootcamp.msi says something about not accessing a key (and wont install)

Applekeyboardinstaller.exe doesn't even run at all (nothing happens when I launch it)

insats

September 13. 2007 04:37

hello,
nobody reported having success with that on vista 64 bits. sorry.

Jonx

September 18. 2007 23:00

Yep, same, the driver is 32bit only. Bootcamp does NOT support Vista x64. We are out of luck I'm afraid.

Squuiid

October 22. 2007 07:29

Thanks for this. I managed to set up my International slim/aluminum/wired keyboard using the above drivers/control panel. The control panel does lock up my system for 10ish seconds when it loads, but I'll take the hit to have proper mapping.

One thing that I didn't resolve was the # key (hash/pound/octothorpe key). Because my keyboard is the International English layout (not the US one), in Mac OS X I can use SHIFT+3 to get the symbol, but that doesn't work in Win XP. This Apple Discussions thread http://url.ie/6gw does show a rather complex workaround if anyone is in the same boat.

cgarvey

December 27. 2007 14:32

First of all thanks. I got the wired aluminium keyboard working even the function keys and I can simply change the behavior of them by opening up the boot camp control panel, but the one thing that annoys me is that if I press the play button the windows media player opens. Has anyone found a way to bind another program to that key?

go die big city

December 29. 2007 02:01

Is the key combination ALT + TAB working with your Apple Keyboards? It doesn't work for me :-(

Steffen

December 29. 2007 17:54

It is for me. since day one... no problem at all...
Have you tried it on another computer?
It should work even without the drivers...

Jonx

January 5. 2008 08:58

Ok, it seems to work. But I have to press ENTER extra. And I don't have this review of the program icons. Is this normal?
I'll try it on another computer.

Steffen

January 6. 2008 13:02

Sorry I don't understand what you mean. but yes, a try on another computer won't hurt...

Jonx

January 20. 2008 04:33

Does anyone have a fix for the 10 second lockup by kbdmgr? I'd really love it Tong

Andreasg

January 20. 2008 19:52

Me too... the problem is that the lookup seems to be caused by the fact that the keyboard manager is trying to find Apple hardware... So only Apple can do something for us here Frown

Jonx

February 3. 2008 12:14

So for vista 64 bits I can`t use the play/pause volume down and up functions?? Hope it changes soons!! With that I will be really happy!!

puntoloco

February 4. 2008 03:48

Hello puntoloco,
Is it a question or are you telling that the buttons are not working? As far as I know, there is nothing new except the fact that it's 64 bits...

Jonx

February 21. 2008 20:58

10x!!!

Gho57

March 10. 2008 01:22

I have a PC, and I'm trying to use the new aluminum bluetooth keyboard on an XP computer. I can get the bluetooth neighborhood to detect the keyboard.. But as soon as I pick connect/pair, it hits an error and won't let me go any further.

From what i've read, it's because the keyboard frequency hops?

I got bootcamp.msi to run, but the applekeyboardinstaller.exe doesn't run.

Any help? Ankur394 at hotmail.com

ports

March 10. 2008 20:12

Hello,
I took the one with wires to be sure not to get problems like that Wink

Just note, that when you say: "applekeyboardinstaller.exe doesn't run." it probably means that it worked and is already installed... you can be sure by looking in your list of installed programs. You should have the keyboard driver listed there...

Jonx

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