changing how built in keyboard function keys work in windows 8 (gaming)

Mid 2010 15-inch macbook pro.

This is a weird question that might not be able to work the way I want anyways, but I'll try to explain it as best as I can.

I put Windows 8 on my MBP so I could play some Windows-Only games (mainly Star Wars: The Old Republic) and I want to be able to use the F keys (F1, F2, F3, etc.) as hotkeys like I did on World of Warcraft running in OSX. In OSX there is a setting to make it so you hold down fn when you press the F key to do the actual function assigned to it, so then the F keys are just another row as far as the game is concerned. However, I couldn't find anything similar in Windows. Is there any way to do this, aside from buying a USB keyboard? I really like having alot of buttons, my mouse has 17 of them.

Also if there is an easy way to say num-lock is on, that would be helpful. That fancy mouse acts like a number pad.