sev-engel

Q: apple wireless keyboard   win 10/x64

I run a mid 2013 MBA plus cinema display plus apple wireless keyboard (model A1255). This constellation worked fine both under MacOS (currently 10.11.5) and bootcamp win 7-64. Recently, the system began to "forget" about the wireless keyboard, which could be re-connected, sometimes automatically (after deleting all the drivers and reinstalling them (which, incidentally, even resulted in a windows blue screen which was recoverable from by simple rebooting)) and sometimes manually by keying in the automatically generated code number.

 

In view of the availability of win 10/x64, I decided to upgrade. Everything runs fine now, but the wireless keyboard is not connectable at all any longer.

 

Right after installation of win 10 via the official bootcamp routines, I got a notification about a faulty driver. Still, the system offered me even a keycode to connect to the wireless keyboard, but did not give me enough time to key that code actually in. Thereafter, I got stuck at the point where the keyboard is reported as coupled, but upon trying to actually connect it the window for keying in a code pops up (with no code generated automatically) and at that point all attempts fail (i.e. "0000" "000000" etc.).

 

I uninstalled the keyboard drivers and put in those from earlier bootcamp versions - no change. The bootcamp I used is 6.0.6136. I also uninstalled the bluetooth drivers - no blue screen with win 10, but otherwise unsuccessful as before.

 

I wonder whether the keyboard driver is relevant here at all - perhaps this is the driver for the on-board-keyboard of the MBA? In any case there this just ONE keyboard driver in the device manager listed, not two, as one would expect. It also could be that the bluetooth drivers are not compatible although they work fine with the wireless magic mouse and other bluetooth items. I also note that a driver shows up under bluetooth drivers for that mouse - but there never was something like "Apple Wireless Keyboard Driver".

 

Help, Apple! I need that keyboard!

Posted on May 19, 2016 5:44 AM

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Q: apple wireless keyboard   win 10/x64

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  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 19, 2016 10:09 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
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    May 19, 2016 10:09 AM in response to sev-engel

    The drivers are unlikely to be an issue, but pairing is where the issues usually are. BT uses link-keys in Windows Registry. Use a USB Keyboard, connect it to your Mac, unpair the Wireless keyboard from OSX, unpair it from Windows, pair it to Windows first, and then pair it to OSX, after it works properly in Windows and test.

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 20, 2016 12:57 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 20, 2016 12:57 AM in response to Loner T

    Hi Loner,

     

    thanks for your suggestion. I have tried that before and now once more precisely as you suggested - it did not work. But hopefully I can now provide you with more details which, imho, clearly point to a driver error.

    The following picture suggests a way to connect the apple wireless keyboard (awk) to a stubborn machine:

    for me not working fix.png

    I followed this procedure (did NOT see the apple keyboard with the warning sign at this point, btw) and deleted all those drivers and tried to reinstall them from bootcamp 5640 hoping that the older (win7?) version would work better. This apparently installed some drivers but not all and so I decided to go for the official Apple release bootcamp 6.0.6136. After installing this and rebooting I got the following information from the device manager:

    1 device manager.png

     

    Now this is all in German (since I am German! :-) ) but it still should be understandable. I have marked the points of interest. Much to my surprise, with a "fresh" bootcamp driver installation the awk DOES show up both under bluetooth AND under HID, albeit in the latter case with a yellow error mark.

    Following the usual routines for reinstalling the driver etc. does NOT work in this case.

     

    So I decided to further enlighten the problem a bit. The next picture shows that the respective (yellow marked) driver cannot be started:

    2 driver.png

    (again I have inserted a translation of the relevant text).

     

    Here are the comments with respect to the error message:

    3 remarks.png

    Here are the driver details:

    4 driver details.png

    Upon comparison of these drivers with the drivers which become installed upon coupling the awk to a "standard" win7/x64 PC I note that ALL the drivers show up there too, however, the file sizes are slightly different as compared to the win 10/x64 counterparts. So there have been "adjustments" by MS. Since these all are generic MS drivers as it seems to me at least, the faulty one should be the Apple KeyMagic.sys!

     

    Anyway, upon trying to reconnect the freshly unpaired awk, this is what happens: At first, the MBA says "there is an awk waiting to be coupled":

     

    6 coupling 1.png

    upon clicking on "couple" NO CODE is generated but rather this window shows up:

    7 coupling 2.png

    Since there is no code generated to be keyed in on the awk, I tried "0000" and "000000" by keying these in on the MBA's own keyboard. Otherwise there would be no contuation possible at this point. Not unexpectedly, this gets me the following:

    8 coupling 3.png

    And from now on, I am in a loop of "ready for coupling - couple - no code - failure. The two entries marked in red in the second screen shot above, have disappeared by now, btw.

     

    To sum up: isn't it pretty  curious that an awk can be connected even to a standard windows PC but not to a MBA running under win 10!?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 20, 2016 5:00 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 20, 2016 5:00 AM in response to sev-engel

    Is the keyboard an Apple Magic Keyboard?

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 20, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 20, 2016 5:35 AM in response to Loner T

    As stated in the first post it's an A1255 "Apple wireless keyboard". The small and beautiful aluminum/aa battery driven bluetooth keyboard with nearly the same layout as the MBA itself.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 20, 2016 6:11 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 20, 2016 6:11 AM in response to sev-engel

    What is the possibility of a clean installation of W10?

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 20, 2016 7:11 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 20, 2016 7:11 AM in response to Loner T

    Close to zero, to be honest. This IS a clean installation! Admittedly I played around with them drivers but sfc /scannow did not bring up any irregularities. In addition, RIGHT AFTER the final bootcamp run, i.e. right before the system was used for the very first time I got the message concerning a "driver error". This related, imho, to the very problem I've detailed above.

    Browsing the web brings up numerous examples of the same problem - there must be a problem with one of the Apple drivers. Mind you: the keyboard CAN be paired with a standard windows7- PC.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 20, 2016 8:25 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 20, 2016 8:25 AM in response to sev-engel

    Can you use pnputil.exe, clean your Driver store and try to install both the BT and USB drivers?

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 23, 2016 12:01 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 23, 2016 12:01 AM in response to Loner T

    I deleted the respective drivers via pnputil as you suggested (had to enforce deletion in cases since they were in use). Rerun of bootcamp, reboot - by and large same situation as before:

     

    -- apple wireless keyboard marked as non functional
    -- msi installation failure during bootcamp inst, but runs otherwise (apparently!) ok
    -- wireless kb reported under BT as "incomplete inst. " > remove

    -- readd > no pairing key generated

     

    I had unpaired the keyboard before from MacOS.

     

    I continue to suspect one of the drivers not to programmed correcly or perhaps there is an error in the inst routine.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 23, 2016 5:12 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 23, 2016 5:12 AM in response to sev-engel

    This is from a 2013 rMBP using W7. W10 may look a little different. I will check the exact drivers on W7.

     

    rMBP2013-DeviceManager-Devices.PNG

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 23, 2016 5:38 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 23, 2016 5:38 AM in response to Loner T

    mind you: the wireless keyboard DID WORK under win7/x64 on my MBA. It lost "reliability" recently and required fairly often re-pairing (which could be time consuming) but in the end it would work under 7/64. But not under 10/64 (which was set up de nouveau, not upgraded, btw (upgrade was "snaggy").

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 25, 2016 6:17 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 25, 2016 6:17 AM in response to sev-engel

    Out of curiosity and since it's not THAT much work, I deleted my bootcamp win10 partition and set up a fresh one with freshly downloaded win 10/x64. After installing the OS I kept bootcamp from installing all those drivers only to find out that much of the system worked quite ok: the cinema display worked nicely, SO DID BOTH THE MAGIC MOUSE AND THE WIRELESS KEYBOARD (!!!!!). But they did not, naturally, work with all features like scrolling, special keys etc., just the basic functions.

     

    In any case this clearly shows that the devices in a most basic form were recognized by win10 automatically and by aid of the on-board drivers.

     

    I tried then to install the bootcamp/win7 drivers (5640) but that both did not run to completion (although the keyboard drivers apparently were installed) neither would it change the situation with the wireless keyboard (i.e. basic functions preserved, nothing else).

     

    Upon installing the appropriate bootcamp drivers (6136) the situation arose as documented in the following four screenshots - again I've translated the relevant information. The keyboard is not connected/connectable since the driver is not working. Unfortunately, this results in the wireless keyboard becoming disconnected, i.e. you can't use it any longer, not even with its basic functions.

     

    So there is no doubt that the Apple wireless keyboard driver as programmed for win10 is corrupted.

     

    Help, Apple!

     

    new1.png

    new2.png

    new3.png

    new4.png

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 25, 2016 6:34 AM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 25, 2016 6:34 AM in response to sev-engel

    Was 6136 installed on the existing 5640 drivers? If you have both versions simultaneously installed, you will run into issues. If you are willing to try this, install W10 as a clean install, and only install 6136 and then test.

  • by sev-engel,

    sev-engel sev-engel May 25, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    May 25, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Loner T

    5640 did not install at all as evident from the failure to play sound, connect to the net etc. 6136 is causing the problem, that's for sure. The system even gets me more detailed descriptiuons of the driver problem, but these are all in German and hard to translate.

     

    Apple may want to look into this issue directly - I recall mention of an incorrect parameter to be set somewhere, integer instead of whatever or such.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T May 26, 2016 5:16 PM in response to sev-engel
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
    Safari
    May 26, 2016 5:16 PM in response to sev-engel

    Can you run the following two procedures after you un-pair the AWK from the OS X side, and then try the AWK with Windows first and then pair it with OS X?

     

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

    How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

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