How to prevent media keys from calling Windows Media Player on Windows?

Question

I have Windows 7 x64 on my laptop and I want to use media keys (specifically, prev/next track) with players that are different from Windows Media Player. But pressing prev/next track leads to starting of WMP. I've removed WMP from system, but these media keys do nothing: their presses are even not detected by any software. How to fix?

Thanks.

EDIT Laptop is ASUS K52DR. There is no any settings panel for any non-standard keys. Also, it's worth mentioning that these media keys perfectly work in Ubuntu.

Answer 1

Just answered this in another thread. For the solution (tested in an Asus U30Jc running Windows 8 Pro 64-bit), see my other answer here: https://superuser.com/a/522809/181992.

The problem with the Asus ATK Media utility is that it doesn't map the media keys to normal keyboard events, it actually looks for a bunch of programs in the registry and loads them and then executes them. You can even trick the original DMedia.exe to launch the software you want (anything!) by editing some registry keys. For that, you can read here: http://mcbx.netne.net/hacks/asusmmed/index.htm

The DMedia.exe I linked to in the other thread's answer actually remaps those keys to normal or generic keyboard events, so they work with any app that can handle them. It doesn't, however, launch any program at all (not even your default media program), but since in Windows 7 and 8 you still have the Win + 1, Win + 2, etc to launch apps pinned to the taskbar there's no need to launch any app.

Answer 2

As a last resort you could try AutoHotKey and configure it to meet your needs.