Windows 10: Powertoys keyboard remapping being permanent

I wanted to play some old games, ones that still used the up, down, left, and right arrow keys to move the screen. I had trouble finding an application that remapped those keys to the more modern WASD without making me pay money. I downloaded powertoys and used that instead.It worked fine until I started my laptop up one day to find that my WASD keys were now permanently remapped to the arrow keys. Even after disabling the keyboard manager, they were still assigned. Even after uninstalling powertoys, they were still assigned. I eventually had to redownload powertoys just to assign the arrow ke

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Powertoys keyboard remapping

Hello, Kristoffer Hjort Jørgensen



Welcome to the Microsoft Community



Thanks for your feedback. I read the information you provided. You mentioned that after using PowerToys to remap the keyboard, the right Alt key does not work properly for typing the @ symbol.



The problem may be caused by a conflict in the keyboard layout or some key functions being overwritten due to remapping.



Please try the following two methods to check whether your settings are correct.



1. Check the PowerToys Keyboard Manager settings

First, make sure that your remapping settings have not accidentally overwritten the function of the right Alt key:



Open PowerToys.

Select "Keyboard Manager".

Click "Remap a key".

Check if any remaps involve the right Alt key. If so, try to delete or modify these remaps.



2. Use a different keyboard layout

Some keyboard layouts may affect the input of special characters. Make sure you are using the correct keyboard layout:



Press Win + I to open "Settings".

Select "Time & Language".

Click "Language".

Make sure your language is set correctly and the keyboard layout is set to the layout you are used to.



If PowerToys does not meet your needs, you can also try using third-party keyboard remapping software, but due to forum rules, I cannot provide the names of these third-party software, you can find them on search engines. Thank you for your understanding.



I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will be happy to help you further.



Best regards

Brian - Microsoft Community Support Specialist

 

Any suggestion how to remap keyboard [Enter] > [Shift-Enter]?

Just some minor additional notes on the use of Powertoys: regretfully there is no way to 'limit' the key mapping to specific applications, in my case it would only be applicable for Outlook only. I've been using Powertoys for a while now. When I am -not- working within Outlook, I disable the the remapping feature. The reason being that, when it is enabled, I noticed that keys may respond differently in other applications. For example: Excel, when hitting [Enter] the cursor would normally (keyboard manager=off) move to right. That's the way I have configured Excel (options) However, with keyboard manager enabled, the cursor (=selection) it will go left (i.e. shift-enter). Or within forum posts, hitting the [Home] key usually moves the cursor to the beginning of a line. With the keyboard manager enabled, the cursors goes to the top of the text -

 

Any suggestion how to remap keyboard [Enter] > [Shift-Enter]?

Thanks again. I have checked out SharpKeys, but I am not sure whether it can handle shift enter. It would map [Enter] to [Enter] not shift enter. " FAQ Q: Can I remap a combination of keys to one key?A: Sadly, no. SharpKeys only remaps whole keys rather than a modified key. For example, you can remap Ctrl or C but you can't remap Ctrl+C to another key. That said, the Microsoft PowerToys tool does offer this functionality - you can learn more about their tool here: Microsoft PowerToys. " i checked out PowerToys and successfully remapped the [Enter] key. see attachment. To undo this, start Powertoys again, select "Remap a key" - then delete from the list that is there. in this respect would also like to thank @NMI