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Windows: remap caps to control (work computer) (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/techsupport@lemmy.world
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At work I have a Windows PC. I don't have much personal experience with Windows which is why I am asking.

I want to remap the caps lock key to function as a control key. Ideally, on a per-user basis as sometimes other people use the workstation and I don't want to confuse them.

  • Was able to install Auto Hot Key. A test script worked. However I couldn't find working instructions about how to do this specific remapping. Example scripts I found seem to have some conflict between v1 and v2 of AH.

  • I don't have admin access however I could probably ask for something, but it would have to work immediately without a lot of fooling around. I will not be granted admin access to try a bunch of things til I find something that works.

What's the best way?

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[+] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)
    • I have small hands that makes certain key combos involving ctrl difficult/uncomfortable to reach
    • at home I have caps lock remapped and therefor I am constantly using it by muscle memory
    • Even before I had remapped it at home, I would sometimes enable it by accident which is annoying
    • in previous versions of windows (I think windows 8?) I could disable caps lock entirely in a system setting but it seems they have removed this option from more recent version
    • it's right there
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  • [+] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's interesting I didn't know that. I used to share workstations with someone from indonesia who had what seemed like very strange habits of employing caps lock constantly. I assumed it was just a personal weirdsy but maybe it was due to use of caps lock in another linguistic context.

    However, I know for a fact that it doesn't do anything I need. I've had it remapped for a couple years on personal machine without issues.

    Thanks for telling me though, because I will be sure not to fallback to the registry or another method that changes behavior system-wide. Would not want to prevent anyone else from using the device.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    I don't see how it would be a problem unless you reassigned it while caps lock was enabled, in which case you would have to reboot (or temporarily revert your remap) to turn it off.

    I can think of precious little software that actually requires caps lock for anything, and otherwise for normal typist tasks you can just use shift. I never use caps lock for anything, personally. (Ditto with num lock. My keyboard has a full number pad and a full set of arrow/insert keys. There is no reason for my number pad to ever not be a number pad.)

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago

    At home, once in a while caps lock turns itself on somehow. I have a shell alias to fix the problem:

    UNCAPS='xdotool key Caps_Lock'

    Should this happen at work I was thinking to either temporarily disable the application that is doing the remapping, or use some sort of onscreen keyboard to inactivate the caps lock.

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