Problem registering F12 as a hotkey in Windows XP

[Reginald0]

Hi, folks!

I'm using a program to set global hotkeys in Windows XP, and it works great from F1 to F11, but my problem is: When I try to register F12 as a hotkey, the following error message appears: "Error. Unable to register the specified Hotkey. The Hotkey is probably busy, already taken by another program. Please choose another Hotkey."
How can I determine which other program has taken the F12 key? Which entry in the Windows registry do I have to check? Is it possible to change the according registry entry by hand so that the program will be able to take the F12 key? I really would like to use F12 as a hotkey.

Thanks in advance.

Reginald0

[caperjack]

Givin that most of the F keys are used as windows hotkeys already ,and you could change the one from F1 to F11 ,i doubt if that is you problem .The only thing I can find that uses f12 is Word ,for save function,also I think this also would depend on what keyboard you are using ,just a standard one or one with a lot of built in extra functions.

[Reginald0]

Problem solved!

The link http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ that point to KeyTweak utility solved my problem. I remapped the F12 key to some key that doesn't exist on my keyboard (mute sound, for example) and the Windows begins to use it's key code, thinking it is F12. Simple but very effective.

PS: Sorry for delay to answer, I was traveling :-)

Reginald0

[soscpd]

Hi Reginaldo

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms646309.aspx

Windows NT4 and Windows 2000/XP: The F12 key is reserved for use by the debugger at all times, so it should not be registered as a hot key. Even when you are not debugging an application, F12 is reserved in case a kernel-mode debugger or a just-in-time debugger is resident.

You probably fix that already, but to future acknowledge of visitors... :)