Believe it or not, I'm typing this post from my Windows 8.1 PC, using my Bluetooth Apple Wireless Keyboard instead of my doltish wired Dell keyboard.
Here's how I did it…
Whether you're using a PC or a Mac with Windows installed, the Apple keyboards should all work perfectly. The various models, such as the Magic Keyboard, either connect through Bluetooth or via a.
I had an extra wireless Apple keyboard laying by my desk, dormant, collecting dust.
So I started to ruminate: Fortnite ios download.
- Magic Keyboard Utilities for Windows® 10 + 8 + 7. The Magic Keyboard with or without Numeric Keypad is supported under Windows 10 + 8, 64bit only. MagicKeyboardUtilities-Setup-110-Legacy.exe: Version 1.10, 16 Jun 2017. The Apple Wireless Keyboard (with 2 or 3 AA batteries) is supported under Windows 10 + 8 + 7, 32bit and 64bit.
- The K750 is a hugely popular alternative to Apple's Magic Keyboard because it's a full-sized keyboard, complete with a very similar spacing pattern. Though it's called 'solar,' it actually charges up using any light, including a desk lamp in your hotel room.
I wonder how hard it is to pair this keyboard with my Windows 8.1 laptop?
Oh friends! It isn't hard at all. Let me show you how breezy it is to knock this tip out the park.
Preparing for pairing
Alright, load a fresh set of double AA's into your battery chamber then hold down the power button for about 5 seconds until the tiny LED in the upper right corner of the keyboard starts to flash.
Great, now hit the Windows Key + w to zip over to the search settings bar and enter this phrase:
Next, you should see your Apple Wireless Keyboard jump into the list in about 30 seconds.
If your keyboard doesn't materialize then make sure Windows 8.1 has all the latest updates. If that doesn't fix it, remove the batteries for a minute, put them back in and try pairing the keyboard again.
You may see a 'That didn't work Please make sure your device is discoverable' error or a 'device no longer listening'. The first error is sometimes a corollary of not holding down the keyboard power button long enough and the second error could be a driver issue.
Press the Windows Key + x + m to whip open the Device manager. Make sure you don't have any yellow alert icons next to any Bluetooth or unknown devices. If so, you might want to remove the device, add it back and then update the drivers.
Disk sensei 1 3 1. In addition, if something still isn't working right ask yourself whether you have existing Bluetooth devices paired with your computer.
If so, you may want to unpair them before attempting to pair your Apple keyboard. That way you can start fresh and incrementally pair your gadgets.
Assuming everything is working so far, click the Pair button then tap in the one-time 8-digit code from your Apple wireless keyboard.
After hitting enter your PC and keyboard are officially married.
Who ever said Apple and Microsoft can't love each other?
Now you might ask what the non-Windows keys such as Command, Mission Control and Launchpad do? You send it gratis.
Ah! I won't ruin on all the fun – why don't you try pressing it on your computer to find out!
Sims 4 origin cc. But I'll say this much:
- The Command button is the Windows Key
- The Option button is analogous to the Alt key
You can view the full PC-to-Mac keyboard mapping on Apple's website.
Now personally, I'm not exactly a big Apple fan, especially since some of their hardware tends to be a little overpriced. But when I started looking for a nice keyboard to go with my new desktop build, I quickly realized that my desires aligned quite nicely with those of our late pomaceous demigod, The Almighty Steve.
The Illusion of Choice
My requirements in a keyboard are simple enough, really. Sorted by importance, they go a little like this:
- Low-profile chiclet keys
- Wired
- Comfortable to type on
- Good build quality
- Not horribly ugly to look at
… and that's about it. No crazy rainbow LED backlighting, no built-in LCD that tells you the weather and suggests going outside for some exercise, no customizable command macros, just a simple keyboard I can write code and game with.
I'm all about efficiency, so I've come to love laptop-style chiclet keys than only need to be depressed a few millimeters. I feel like I'm wasting so much energy when I'm pushing an old clunky mechanical key down into the Earth's mantle just to get one lousy letter out of it. And forget this wireless nonsense of pairing devices and changing batteries all the time. Wireless tech is cool and all, but until it's been better refined I'll stick to untangling my rat's nest of cables once a year, thanks.
Apple Wireless Keyboard Windows 10
So wasn't I pleasantly surprised to learn that Apple's standard wired keyboard is only $50, when anything comparable from Logitech, Microsoft or SteelSeries was double the price and double the ugly. I've been using it for over a week now, and I'm happy to report that it's the best feeling keyboard I've ever used, so I highly recommend it.
There are a few quirks to using an Apple keyboard on a Windows machine, of course, but nothing we can't fix with some program downloaded off the internet. Your two choices here are AutoHotkey and SharpKeys. The former runs as a script in the background that intercepts key presses and can make them do something else entirely, like a multi-key press macro, which makes it far more powerful. But again, since I'm a little obsessed with efficiency, it just wouldn't do for me to have a script that starts up with Windows on every boot, eating precious CPU cycles while I wait for code to compile. So, I went with SharpKeys, which has the added bonus of being much easier to use than AutoHotkey. You don't have to write any scripts, just a few clicks is all you need to set yourself up permanently.
Setting Up SharpKeys For The Apple Keyboard
The good news is that the keyboard itself is plug-and-play with a Windows machine, with almost everything working as expected. But if you're anything like me, you probably want your shiny new device to match the functionality of a standard keyboard layout as closely as possible. The first step here is to identify the problem children when using the keyboard with stock settings:
Apple Keyboard Windows Bluetooth
- The Windows and Alt keys are swapped, on both the left and right of the spacebar
- There's no Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break, or Insert keys
- The Eject and Function keys don't do anything
So, with this in mind, I suggest the following SharpKeys remapping:
We've now fixed almost everything: the Windows and Alt keys are swapped back to the way they should be, and we get our handy Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Insert keys back. The only problem is that Function and Eject are not recognized by SharpKeys, and hence we can't do anything with them. You could probably overcome this using AutoHotkey, but I didn't bother trying. The good news, however, is that you have four extra function keys you can use for whatever you want (I went with music controls), which gives us the following effective keyboard: Apple 10 4 update.
Windows Apple Keyboard Mapping
Now, I'm sure there's a purist out there somewhere, screaming at his monitor that this doesn't match the One True Keyboard Layout. Well, unfortunately, Pause/Break give SharpKeys some trouble by having a non-standard keycode, so I just didn't bother with it. And let's be honest, when's the last time you pressed it? (If you answered 'changing my environment variables, duh!' then you've earned yourself a cookie! But it's still incredibly rarely, c'mon…) So, I plugged Insert there, rather than on the non-functional Function key (oh the irony). Finally, since Clear already behaves as Num Lock out of the box, we've got ourselves keyboard we can work with. Enjoy the shinies!
