Is there a point to running Intellitype?

Question

I have a Microsoft Comfort Curve 3000. It came with the "Intellitype" driver software, which I allowed to be installed because why not.

The only feature of this software that I can see is that it makes a little graphic pop-up when I use the change volume buttons on my keyboard, showing the volume level. This is, of course, useless because the volume icon already graphically shows the volume level with the little waves next to the speaker.

On the other hand, it seems that after a system restart, the first time I try to change my volume with the itype.exe running, there is a delay of about 20 seconds before the computer starts responding to the volume change buttons. After that, it works normally.

If I forcibly end itype.exe there is no such delay, and I can adjust my volume from the keyboard normally.

So, it seems like this Intellitype does nothing other than introduce delays. Is there any point to running this "keyboard driver" (ie. does it do anything useful)? Why does it lead to a delay when I first try to adjust my volume?

Note that there are four non-standard keys on my Comfort Curve 3000: "Calculator", "Start/stop", "Volume up" and "Volume down". I only use the latter two.

Answer 1

Intellitype is not a driver, its just software. You do not need to use it and it is safe to uninstall. I havent used Intellitype in years, so I dont know what it does now. I believe it used to allow to remap those keys to do other things, like launch a program. However, you can do that with other software, like AutoHotKey, which is far more powerful.