How to disable quick launch keys on Acer laptop?

0

I have a friend who has an Acer Aspire 6930G laptop that came preinstalled with Windows Vista. From day one had the problem that pressing certain keys launched certain applications, i.e. pressing the key A launches Internet Explorer, TAB disables WiFi, etc.

She then got a laptop for work, so she never took the Acer into the shop where she bought it to have the problem fixed. She now stopped working and had to turn in the laptop so I promised to help her get the old laptop working as warranty has now run out on the Acer. As Windows Vista is not an option in my eyes, I installed a fresh install of Windows 7 (not an Acer specific version). Funny thing is that the quick launch still work as they did on Vista, even on a clean Win7 install with no Acer software installed! Having a laptop where you cannot write the letter A without launching IE is quite annoying to say the least :) .. so a solution has to be found.

There is no setting to disable the quick launch keys in registry, so I guess it's part of the keyboard driver Windows auto-installs for the keyboard on the laptop, but I can't find another driver for it to use. Acer has some software called Launch Manager that quick launches applications with certain keys, so tried installing that too, but all I can do is remap the hotkeys to open some other application, not disable them. Have also tried installing a keyboard remapper software but it seems that the acer application/keyboard driver overrules key remap settings written to registry.

Have googled endlessly, called Acer support, etc. but the solution seems nowhere. Can anybody in here help with a solution on how to disable these hot keys? Would be highly appreciated!

Thank you :)

rassom

Posted 2012-05-17T07:39:46.580

Reputation: 593

I am willing to bet Acer has software on the PC to disable this. Check programs and features to see if there is quick launch software installed from Acer, you could uninstall it. – Moab – 2012-05-17T14:35:54.100

Answers

2

As a workaround, just remap all the keys to run c:\windows\system32\rundll32.exe. It is designed to run a specific entry point of a specified DLL, but if you don't give it any parameters it just silently exits. There's no popup message or command box, either.

This behaviour is the same on Win2k, WinXP, Vista, Win7, etc.

Polynomial

Posted 2012-05-17T07:39:46.580

Reputation: 1 339

Thanks :) I'll try that right away - but where? In registry? If yes, where in registry? – rassom – 2012-05-17T08:25:35.430

You mentioned that Launch Manager can remap the keys. Do it from there. – Polynomial – 2012-05-17T08:39:18.613

Nice solution. +1 – Joe Taylor – 2012-05-17T08:51:54.347

Ok, did that and it worked for the A key. Great! :-) Forgot to mention though, that Launch Manager doesn't have a setting for the TAB key, so whenever I press TAB, it disables WIFI (imagine typing your e-mail into a login box, then tab to go to password box - poof - no internet connection :) Any ideas on how to fix that? – rassom – 2012-05-17T08:56:30.663

It disables wifi when you press tab? That seems... broken. Are you sure the Fn key isn't held down? – Polynomial – 2012-05-17T13:40:28.270

Yes, I tried playing with the Fn key, but that's not it unfortunately. – rassom – 2012-05-17T21:18:29.850

Any ideas on what to do with TAB disabling WIFI? – rassom – 2012-05-20T19:58:09.033

@RasmusS If pressing the Tab key disables your WiFi, something is very wrong. I suggest contacting the manufacturer. – Polynomial – 2012-05-21T08:12:29.797

I did and they were of no help, unfortunately (and warranty has run out, so no reason to take it back into the shop where it was bought). It does who a "Wifi enabled" / "Wifi disabled" on screen message when pressing TAB, so I am quite sure it is meant to be that way (but maybe for another key than TAB, hence my suspicion of Windows using the wrong keyboard driver as pressing the A key wouldn't normally open a browser either!). – rassom – 2012-05-21T08:38:25.583

If your keyboard is that messed up, I suggest gutting out all the keyboard driver junk they installed with the laptop. It should default back to the normal generic keyboard driver. – Polynomial – 2012-05-21T08:39:52.353

That's what I thought I did when I installed a clean install of Windows 7 (not Vista, which came with the computer). But Windows seem to find the wrong driver even with no Acer software installed whatsoever. Thanks for trying to help. Really appreciate it :) – rassom – 2012-05-28T15:42:57.110

Asked: 2012-05-17T07:39:46.580

Viewed: 3 526 times

Active: 2012-05-17T07:43:01.217