How do I reverse the function key's settings on my Windows 8.1 ASUS? (And therefore not have to press fn + f1 -12)?

[Zacius96]

I just bought a new Windows 8.1 ASUS laptop two days ago, and I really like it. However, one con I've noticed about it is that the function key (fn) is set to where you must press that key and another button to adjust the brightness, volume, etc. All my drivers are up to date, but with my limited technical knowledge I'm frustrated that I cannot simply press the brightness/volume/ project buttons without having to first have another finger on the fn key. I'd rather use the keys like I have used them for every other laptop model I've used before, so help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Deleted member 1300495]

You need t do that as the F buttons are used for people whoa re designing web pages and a lot of advanced programs have shortcuts embedded into those keys. An example would be; if you press F12 on a Dell laptop on a webpage, it opens up the developer console, also known as the inspect element window. And if you press Fn+F12 on a Dell laptop, it will increase the volume which can be handy when you are playing a computer on full screen.

 

[windschief]

sorry I got no answer as I am looking for the solution myself. Telling me it opens all kinds of options for programmers and whats not doesn't help - I need the volume and brightness controls! Especially the volume I have to use TWO hands since the fn and f12 keys are so far apart. It really sucks.
On some notebooks you may find an option in the BIOS to reverse the f-keys, not so on mine (Asus S500).
So if there are so many programmers and hackers out there - it can't be that hard to write a little keyboard app/driver whatever to reverse them? I mean I can switch my keyboard from english to spanish to german to russian if I wanted - why can't I switch the f-keys around? please help us non programmers!!!

 

[sonoframbo]

sorry I got no answer as I am looking for the solution myself. Telling me it opens all kinds of options for programmers and whats not doesn't help - I need the volume and brightness controls! Especially the volume I have to use TWO hands since the fn and f12 keys are so far apart. It really sucks.
On some notebooks you may find an option in the BIOS to reverse the f-keys, not so on mine (Asus S500).
So if there are so many programmers and hackers out there - it can't be that hard to write a little keyboard app/driver whatever to reverse them? I mean I can switch my keyboard from english to spanish to german to russian if I wanted - why can't I switch the f-keys around? please help us non programmers!!!

You could probably whip something up with auto hot key pretty quickly.
check it out
http://ahkscript.org/docs/misc/Remap.htm

 

[windschief]

Thank you Sonoframbo! at least I got the volume issue fixed with that as I remapped the regular F11/F12 keys with the volume control. Now the brightness seems to be a different issue (a hardware signal not going through the system and therefore can't be intercepted by software as I understand) so I guess even altering the actual keyboard driver wouldn't help to remap or reverse those keys (would be F5/F6 in my case) ?

p.s. I checked the key log in AutoHotKey and the brightness controls are not being detected


UPDATE

I got it! using Nirsoft's nircmd and adding this to the autohotkey script:

F6::Run nircmd.exe changebrightness +10
F5::Run nircmd.exe changebrightness -10

the only weird thing - it doesn't display the bar that shows how much up or down it is, though when I press the regular FN+F5/6 just to make the bar show and then use the F5/6 you can see the slider moving until the bar disappears...

 

[annibell]

hold the Fn key for about 10 seconds, typically it will have a lock that can turn on and off and this will switch it.

 

[Areayea]

k so you gotta go to your start button, then go to all programs or all apps, depending on your os, then to to toshiba then either tools and utilities or settings, and it's under the keyboard tab, in there change it to f1-12 mode, and you will need to press fn keys for all the fn, I play mmos so I was adamant on changing that immediately.

 

[MrMillington]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

 

[MrMillington]

sorry I got no answer as I am looking for the solution myself. Telling me it opens all kinds of options for programmers and whats not doesn't help - I need the volume and brightness controls! Especially the volume I have to use TWO hands since the fn and f12 keys are so far apart. It really sucks.
On some notebooks you may find an option in the BIOS to reverse the f-keys, not so on mine (Asus S500).
So if there are so many programmers and hackers out there - it can't be that hard to write a little keyboard app/driver whatever to reverse them? I mean I can switch my keyboard from english to spanish to german to russian if I wanted - why can't I switch the f-keys around? please help us non programmers!!!

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons
works for windows 10

 

[NOT_PROVIDED_305]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

Toshiba did an update last night and now I have to hold down the FN key to get my volume buttons to work - I have tried all of the solutions listed with no success. Any other ideas?

 

[clotheshorse]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

Toshiba did an update last night and now I have to hold down the FN key to get my volume buttons to work - I have tried all of the solutions listed with no success. Any other ideas?

I think I've found a solution. I'm running Windows 10 on a Toshiba Satellite.

I searched for "Toshiba assist" with the search function and opened the program. On the left side, I clicked "Optimize" and then "Toshiba hardware settings". Under the "Keyboard" tab I selected the "Special function mode" under "Function keys mode". After restarting my computer, I was able to use the volume/brightness buttons without pressing the Fn key!

Hope this helps!

 

[wilmo5812]

I just bought a new Windows 8.1 ASUS laptop two days ago, and I really like it. However, one con I've noticed about it is that the function key (fn) is set to where you must press that key and another button to adjust the brightness, volume, etc. All my drivers are up to date, but with my limited technical knowledge I'm frustrated that I cannot simply press the brightness/volume/ project buttons without having to first have another finger on the fn key. I'd rather use the keys like I have used them for every other laptop model I've used before, so help would be greatly appreciated!

I had a problem with reversed fn key. A 0 would show up when I pressed the M key and a 3 with the l key and 5 with the i key. Just hold down the fn key and press Insert/num lk key. It solved my problem.

 

[wilmo5812]

I just bought a new Windows 8.1 ASUS laptop two days ago, and I really like it. However, one con I've noticed about it is that the function key (fn) is set to where you must press that key and another button to adjust the brightness, volume, etc. All my drivers are up to date, but with my limited technical knowledge I'm frustrated that I cannot simply press the brightness/volume/ project buttons without having to first have another finger on the fn key. I'd rather use the keys like I have used them for every other laptop model I've used before, so help would be greatly appreciated!

Hold down fn key and press insert/num lk

 

[bravoseb1]

Please tell me if there's a keys combination
that works for Asus or Dell both running Win 10.
I dont do registry stuff...

Thank you!
Pura vida!

 

[SsshirazzZ]

Either your hardware supports it or it doesn't. My new ASUS does not. All of the above suggestions do not work.

The fn key in itself, ie. pressed on its own, is not detectable by the OS.

Certain fn-function keys *are* detected by OS, others are not, which is to say the hardware never exposes the keypress to the OS. On my ASUS K501UX, I can remap the media function keys but not the brightness key.

No amount of programming can change this, as I understand.

 

[Tali__M]

I just bought a new Windows 8.1 ASUS laptop two days ago, and I really like it. However, one con I've noticed about it is that the function key (fn) is set to where you must press that key and another button to adjust the brightness, volume, etc. All my drivers are up to date, but with my limited technical knowledge I'm frustrated that I cannot simply press the brightness/volume/ project buttons without having to first have another finger on the fn key. I'd rather use the keys like I have used them for every other laptop model I've used before, so help would be greatly appreciated!

Nothing here worked. I couldnt hold Fn for 10 seconds or hold it and esc. Running windows 10 and couldnt find anything mentioned. I searched my comp for "function key" and it came up. It only had two switches for comp brightness and for touchpad. For some reason enabling my touchpad allowed my fn keys to work without pressing Fn.

 

[Ilsole]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

Toshiba did an update last night and now I have to hold down the FN key to get my volume buttons to work - I have tried all of the solutions listed with no success. Any other ideas?

I think I've found a solution. I'm running Windows 10 on a Toshiba Satellite.

I searched for "Toshiba assist" with the search function and opened the program. On the left side, I clicked "Optimize" and then "Toshiba hardware settings". Under the "Keyboard" tab I selected the "Special function mode" under "Function keys mode". After restarting my computer, I was able to use the volume/brightness buttons without pressing the Fn key!

Hope this helps!

This absolutely helped!

I use windows 8.1 and needed to instal Toshiba's Desktop assist program. After restart, I found option there to change fn mode to standard f1-12.

 

[Sadhana_1]

Please tell me if there's a keys combination
that works for Asus or Dell both running Win 10.
I dont do registry stuff...

Thank you!
Pura vida!

Fn+ESC worked for my Dell

 

[RoysKeen]

To use your function keys without having to press FN every time, this has worked for me on my Toshiba L-50 laptop (Windows 10) :

1) Go to Driver Downloads here: http://www.toshiba.co.uk/innovation/download_drivers_bios.jsp?service=UK
2) Select the correct model information but ensure the 'DRIVER TYPE' selection is on .Windows 10 Upgrade Drivers
3) Press Search and then click on the '.Windows 10 Upgrade Drivers' in the table below
4) On the next page, click on 'Click here to download drivers for Windows 10'
5) Enter your product information and then Submit
6) Download TOSHIBA Function Key and then restart

That worked for me after everything else failed.

 

[Leeleebaby]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

THIS WORKED...omg I was ready to throw this laptop and I found ur post...u r the best!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Jeremy_39]

I had to run a hotkey script to control my volume
F12::Volume_Up
F11::Volume_Down
F10:Volume_Mute

 

[anand7um]

just hold fn button and press esc key once to lock or unlock f buttons

Thx Mr M, I have been looking for this answer for ages now!!! The answer was really right in front of me on the keyboard all the time. fn key + esc sequence triggers the 'Function key lock/unlock' action. My keyboard shows a picture of a lock with Fn written on the esc key, which gets activated when Fn + Esc is pressed. I must have activated this while trying to use Fn + F1 which maps to a mute function on my laptop keyboard.

 

[XeroVesk]

Same here, I bought a Dell laptop but
it was windows 7. I used to do the FN thing wih the volume and brightness etc. But the t hing is when i updaed it to Windows 10, it reversed. I want to get it back to normal again.

 

[nuteszter]

On my Vaio, there is a "Num Lk" button. Press that and the numeric pad is activated, press it again and you can use the keys as before ("m" instead of "0", "j" instead of "1", etc.).

It took me a while to find it!

 

[iridopelma]

I pushed the Start button to try and locate Toshiba Assist so I could do as the other comments suggested. As I was looking through the apps, I saw one called Function Key.
I clicked it, and everything went back to normal.