McCoy Pauley

Q: Retina iMac/Win 8.1/Wired keyboard/no fn keys?

I've been hunting and don't seem to have found a solution for this exact problem, so here goes.

 

Just got my brand-new Retina iMac (4GHz i7, 512GB SSD, R295 4GB).  After a couple of false starts, I managed to have a smooth BootCamp install of Windows 8.1.  Boot Camp drivers installed successfully, and my *USB* Apple keyboard and Magic Trackpad are recognized and working, but I have no fn-key functionality.  I.e., hitting either F1 or fn-F1 is seen by Windows as an F1 keypress and brings up help, instead of altering brightness.  Same for the volume control keys F10-F12.  I've tried both checking and unchecking the option for fn-key behavior in the Boot Camp control panel, but it makes no difference.

 

Tried running the repair option in the Boot Camp driver install, makes no difference.  Tried manually reinstalling the AppleKeyboard drivers from the Boot Camp USB stick, but it says it can't find the hardware.  (I'm assuming those are for the wireless keyboard.)

 

Has anyone gotten the fn-function keys to work with a wired, USB keyboard under Windows 8.1?  (With a Retina iMac or anything else?)  If so, please let me know how it was done.

 

Thanks!

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), Windows 8

Posted on Jul 23, 2015 8:16 AM

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Q: Retina iMac/Win 8.1/Wired keyboard/no fn keys?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Jul 23, 2015 9:22 AM in response to McCoy Pauley
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    Jul 23, 2015 9:22 AM in response to McCoy Pauley

    1. Do you have any unknown devices in Device Manager?

    2. You can try the following and test

         Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

         How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

  • by McCoy Pauley,

    McCoy Pauley McCoy Pauley Jul 23, 2015 11:03 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jul 23, 2015 11:03 AM in response to Loner T

    All devices seem to be good in Device Manager.  I'm not near the machine now, so can't try PRAM/SMC reset, but I'd hope that they're good when the machine's fresh out of the box.  Will give that a try tonight if necessary.

     

    Thanks!

  • by McCoy Pauley,Solvedanswer

    McCoy Pauley McCoy Pauley Jul 23, 2015 3:55 PM in response to McCoy Pauley
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jul 23, 2015 3:55 PM in response to McCoy Pauley

    And I managed to fix it, with some hints from elsewhere on the web!  It appears that the current Boot Camp drivers for the Retina iMac don't work properly with the wired keyboard, but the older drivers in version 5.1.5621 do.  Here's what I did:

    1) Download Boot Camp Support Software v5.1.5621 from here.

    2) Unzip the file.

    3) In the subdirectory "BootCamp5/BootCamp/Drivers/Apple", find the "AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe" file and copy it to a USB drive (or however else you want to get it into your Windows partition.)

    4) In Windows, run the file to install the older keyboard driver.

     

    Once I did this, I was immediately able to use the fn+Function keys for brightness and volume.  Interestingly, the brightness keys display a Windows 8 styled vertical gauge in the upper left of the screen, while the volume keys still use the familiar Apple overlay at the bottom center of the screen.  Regardless, everything's working now!  I hope this is helpful to someone else in the same situation.  Loner T, thanks for the guidance.

  • by AbhayKalla,

    AbhayKalla AbhayKalla Jun 29, 2016 3:49 PM in response to McCoy Pauley
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Windows Software
    Jun 29, 2016 3:49 PM in response to McCoy Pauley

    Thank you, it took me half a day to troubleshoot this issue. I had installed BootCamp multiple times. After installing the older version above fn key instantly started working