Hooking softkeys on Windows?

Question

My laptop has a mysterious "AV Now" button on it, which would usually launch Samsung's "AVStation Now" application. I don't have this application installed, so I'd like to get this button to do something else.

So (and this question can be generalised to any keyboard with softbuttons on it), how would I go about writing a Windows program (C++ or C#) to:

• Figure out what pressing this button does. Is it a custom USB HID device, or is it just an obscure key combination?
• Install a global hook for this button, so that I could get it to do something useful.

Answer 1

I'd like to get this button to do something else.

If you don't insist on writing the program yourself, you can remap keys: These extra buttons are mostly just obscure key combinations, and in WinXP and above it is possible to remap just about any button on the keyboard to any other by modifying a registry setting at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

There exists a frontend utility to do this for you: check out SharpKeys. You select the key to remap from, key to remap to, write to registry and reboot. (Writing the keymap into the registry requires administrative privileges, as the keyboard mapping is global for all users.)