Getting IntelliType for Microsoft keyboards and/or mice to load at startup in macOS
IntelliType was last updated by Microsoft for Lion, 10.7.x. It has not been touched since then, though MS continues to keep the Windows version updated. It's more than safe to say this software has been abandoned. If you look at older MS Ergonomic 4000 keyboard boxes, it says the product is for both Windows and Mac. Newer boxes say Windows only. There's proof positive you will never see another IntelliType update for Mac users.
The following instructions will work for Mountain Lion, 10.8.x through Yosemite, 10.10.x.
Microsoft hasn't fixed the issue with the IntelliType drivers so they load by themselves. You have to open the System Preferences and click on the Microsoft Keyboard or Mouse panes to get them to load. The following will eliminate the need to perform these manual steps.
I'd like to give credit to the person who first discovered this, but having found the same text in numerous places, I can't single out the origin.
- Navigate to the folder /Library/PreferencePanes/ of the startup drive
- Right click on Microsoft Mouse.prefpane for mice, Microsoft Keyboard.prefPane for keyboards
- From the resulting contextual menu, select Show Package Contents
- Navigate down to Contents > Resources
- Leave the Resources folder open on the desktop and open the System Preferences
- Select Users & Groups
- Click on your user account and then the Login Items tab
- Go back to the Resources folder on the desktop, select the file MicrosoftMouseHelper or MicrosoftKeyboardHelper, then drag and drop it into the Login Items window on the right hand side of the Login Items page (in the System Preferences window).
In the sample below, I added the keyboard helper.
Repeat the steps if you added the keyboard helper and also need the mouse helper.
Now when you restart or start up your Mac, these helpers will load automatically.
For users wondering if this is some sort of hack, it is not. If you've used IntelliType in Lion, Snow Leopard, or other previous versions of the Mac OS, you'll see that MicrosoftMouseHelper and/or MicrosoftKeyboardHelper are in the user account Login Items. What's probably happening is security changes in Mountain Lion and forward, such as sandboxing, are preventing these Login Items from being added during installation. All you're doing is manually completing a step the IntelliType installer is failing at.
El Capitan 10.11.x and later.
There's only one way to use IntelliType in El Capitan and Sierra. You have to disable System Integrity Protection and leave it off. This is, of course, a very poor idea. In High Sierra, you can't use it at all.
This is due to IntelliType's kernel extension being unsigned. It's old, and Apple hadn't started requiring vendors to code sign their apps yet back in Lion, 10.7.x. Through each new major release of macOS, the restriction on kernel extensions kept getting tighter. In El Capitan and Sierra, you could still use an unsigned kernel extension as long as SIP was off. In High Sierra, unsigned extensions aren't allowed. Period.
That means you need to use something else to control your Ergonomic 4000 keyboard along with other MS keyboards and mice that have many extra keys that do nothing without a driver that can assign actions to them.
A very important thing to consider when choosing a replacement driver is that you don't purchase something outdated, or the developer isn't giving much attention to anymore. 32 bit apps are on the way out. Mojave, 10.14.x will only provide limited support for 32 bit apps. The next major release after Mojave will be 64 bit only. So any 32 bit only software you buy now will be dead after Mojave.
I've tried both of these drivers. Of the 8 or so I tried, they're really the only two good choices and are already 64 bit.
ControllerMate - Okay, let's just say it. ControllerMate has a very confusing interface with not a whole lot of descriptions or good video demos to figure it out. But once you get it, it's actually not hard to use. Its advantage is you can get it to control darn near anything on virtually any keyboard or mouse. There's even an Ergonomic 4000 layout you can download from them for the app. That makes it possible to assign every single key IntelliType could.
USB Overdrive - Much easier to use and understand interface. You can't access as many keys on the Ergo 4000, but you can cover most of them. The only ones in particular you can't assign an action to are the five silver keys at the top center, and the star key below those.