Changing modifier keys in keyboard preference pane has no effect

It's not you or your keyboard, Snow Leopard simply broke that for USB keyboards. Even editing the .plist files, which you had to do before 10.4, no longer works. It *****. And I doubt Apple will get around to fixing this anytime soon.

I have a British Apple keyboard, and I have the same problem. A bit annoying, I bought it because I thought this was a problem with the other keyboard (a Dell).

Hopefully, it's an easy patch/fix.

Odd! Works fine with my USB MS keyboard...

I'm having this problem too! I hope they fix it; this makes my system almost unusable!

This is very frustrating.

It works just fine on my laptop, but not my Apple USB keyboard.

I submitted a bug about this: rdar://problem/7183830

I was just able to get this to work.

I had my keyboard plugged into my monitor along with my Logitech mouse, which was acting as a USB hub. I plugged my keyboard directly into my computer, making sure that my mouse was NOT also plugged in, and then switched the modifier preferences. It worked just fine. I set everything back up to how it was before and the preferences have stuck - the modifier key functions remain.

Brilliant, just brilliant! Unplugging the mouse let me make the change. Thank you for helping restore my productivity.

@mtrichardson: THANK YOU!!! I've been having problems my modifier keys for months, and was using the section of the modifiers that affected ALL keyboards to swap the modifier keys. That section was apparently removed in snow leopard which left me high and dry until I saw your post. I tried unplugging the mouse and THEN configuring the USB keyboard, and that did the trick!

Mouse is a logitech mx revolution, which I love, but it apparently causes some strange side effects. I should never have installed Logitech's drivers.

Thanks again,

-- Mike

This worked for me too. Thanks.

Wow, thank you! I also have the Logitech MX Revolution mouse and I just had to unplug its USB dongle and then set my Modifier Keys. The last couple days have been miserable for me trying to use the wrong Control key. You've increased my productivity 10x. 🙂

mtrichardson, I owe you a beer.

In System Preferences|Keyboard|Modifier Keys, there's a "Select Keyboard" drop-down box at the top; you have to select each keyboard and change its settings individually.
I didn't notice at at first, either.

You the man! Thanks for this one, it was driving me crazy!

You're a genius. Thank you so much.

Unplugging the dongle to my Logitech MX 1100 and then swapping my modifier keys worked. Just be sure to open the modifier keys window first.

Unfortunately I have to have the Logitech drivers to be able to adjust the settings on extra buttons like the sensitivity switching ones. I really wish the sensitivity levels were preset in the mouse and each press of the plus or minus buttons just moved up or down a level. All the other buttons can be programmed through OS X as far as I can tell.