How can I disable the Win key?

John Savill

March 4, 1999

1 Min Read
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A. To disable both Windows keys perform the following:

  1. Start the registry editor (regedt32.exe)

  2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlKeyboard Layout

  3. From the Edit menu select New - Binary Value

  4. Enter a name of "Scancode Map" and press enter

  5. Double click on the new value and set to
    0000 0000 0000 0000 0300 0000 0000 5BE0 0000 5CE0 0000 0000 Do not type the spaces, I only include them only to help you view the data

  6. Click OK

  7. Close the registry editor and reboot the machine

Once the machine has restarted the Win key will no longer work

You can automate this by placing the command in a regini file, create the file remove_win.ini with the following contents

RegistryMachineSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlKeyboard Layout      Scancode Map = REG_BINARY 24         0x00000000 0x00000000 3              0xE05B0000 0xE05C0000                 0x0

To then run the script enter the command

regini remove_win.ini

Regini.exe is supplied with the Windows NT Resource kit.

To re-enable the Win key delete the "Scancode Map" value you created.

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