Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 won't work on OS X El Capitan

Kurt,

I went through the whole process you outlined, but still doesn't work for me. The regular keys work but the other key assignments don't respond. I re-installed the 8.2 version of the software, but the preference pane shows my old assignments still there. Should it have done a "clean install" to make the keyboard work correctly?

Sorry, forgot to add another link to this similar topic. Once you have IntelliType installed, you have to manually add a startup item to your account. See this post:

Getting IntelliType for Microsoft keyboards and/or mice to load at startup in Mountain Lion

This worked perfect to swap Windows/Alt keys. It doesn't do anything for the "Favorites" keys. I spoke with MS yesterday. They were useless. Took 4 re-routings through multiple countries to find out they know about the issue, but will promise no updates. Excellent..thanks MS.

Genius! Thank you so much for this fix. It works PERFECT! All of the previous settings I had for favorites, key swaps, etc. came back.

Sorry, still doesn't work. On the other hand, it could be my keyboard. It's not the one you mentioned, mine is a MS "Wireless Comfort Keyboard for Mac" but it still uses the Intellitype 8.2 software so thought your fixes ought to work on my keyboard. But they don't.

Does anyone else with my keyboard have a work-around?

This did the trick for me also. Thanks.

I have extended the Karabiner-provided mappings to also cover the right-side modifiers, i.e. make the Right Alt to be Command, and Application key to be Right Alt. Here's the code that you can use in the "private.xml" file of Karabiner: https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner/issues/516

I need some help getting the buttons on the left side to work (browser, mail, iTunes, etc). Don't have a need to re-map the Alt key.

Thank you for this thread, Sam Combs, and for a solution, Bill. Just installed El Capitan, noticed right away that on my Microsoft 4000 the Alt and Windows keys no longer worked as Option and Command, despite the settings in Intellipoint 8.2. Downloaded Karabiner, followed Bill's diagram, and all is well.

Ken

I installed Karabiner 10.14.0 and selected the (3) items Bill showed and closed the Karabiner prefs window. Control & Alt buttons did not switch. I saw no button to apply. Was I supposed to do something after checking the boxes besides just closing the Karabiner prefs window? I also did a restart. No change.

I have the MS Wireless Comfort Keyboard 5000, Intellitype 8.2, El Capitan on a Mac Mini 2012 i7.

10 key pad & volume keys work, but not Hot Keys or Command/Control key swap.

I've tried with System Prefs> MS Keyboard > Options with "Swap Windows & Alt Keys" selected and de-selected. No Change.

Thanks for any help.

Karabiner does not seem to work swap my Command & Control keys with my MS WL KB 5000. I selected Bill's three items, closed Karabiner 10.14.0 window. No change. Restarted, no change. El Capitan on 2012 Mac Mini. I can control volume and use 10 key pad, but also the five Hot Keys still do not work.

Hi Kurt,

Thank you for your advice. How do I Boot to the Recovery partition?

Jim Donnelly

Restart the Mac and hold down the Command+R keys.

I'm having this problem as well, on OS X 10.11.5. I have the same MS ergonomic keyboard 4000. In my case it still 90% worked, except for the command and option keys being swapped, and the volume up/down/mute keys don't appear to work.

I found a quick solution that does not involve installing any additional software that seems to work, so hopefully this will help others as well. If you launch "System Preferences" and click "Keyboard" (not the "Microsoft Keyboard", the apple one), and then click "Modifier Keys", you have the option to change the Command and Option keys around. This fixed the issue for me. I set Option to Command and Command to Option, and all was back to normal.

I still have yet to fix the volume keys. I'm reluctant to install any third party software, apart from the MS software (hopefully MS will update this in the future, not holding my breath). But for now, I'm at least back in business. Hopefully this suggestion helps others.