Configure Fn Keys? Or disable airplane mode? Aspire 7 (A715-72G-798H)

DysfunctionKey

Hi all, I have an Acer Aspire 7 (A715-72G-798H) and I'm constantly hitting the "F2" key by accident which turns on airplane mode. I would LOVE to be able to disable this key, or remap it to a different FN key or SOMETHING. I've read you can go into the bios and disable fn lock, but I don't really want that because the volume keys are also FN hotkeys and I use them all the time. Is there any way to change the configuration of these keys? Thanks in advance.

DysfunctionKey

I wouldn't say that is the default for any laptop. Some have dedicated buttons for volume control that aren't a part of the Fn+Key scheme.

But in any event, I was able to come up with a workaround using AutoHotKey that mapped the true F10 and F11 keys to volume up/down which gave me the result I was looking for. If anyone else is interested, here's the script. You must enable "Function Keys" as the default special key behavior in BIOS for this to work.

F10::SoundSet, -2

F11::SoundSet, +2

Download and install AutoHotKey, then copy and paste the code above into a text file with the extension .ahk. To take it a step further, you can compile it into an EXE and have that EXE launch on startup (Google is your friend if you don't know how to do this). It's hokey and rigged, but it works. Better than the Acer solution, which is "there's nothing you can do, deal with it". 

Thanks anyway.

MaClane

Good afternoon DysfunctionKey !

Have you tried simply changing the MediaKeys Bios to SpecialKeys?

DysfunctionKey

It was set to "Special Keys". I changed it to "Function Keys" as a test, and as expected, F2 is no longer the airplane mode key, but now I have to press Fn+F10, F11 to change volume, which I was hoping to avoid. I take it there's no way to specify what function is assigned to which key?

MaClane

The operation of the keys is only by activating the Fn function or directly on the SpecialKeys. This is the default of any laptop. Mapping keys often causes an error since IRQ has more than one function on the same key.

DysfunctionKey

I wouldn't say that is the default for any laptop. Some have dedicated buttons for volume control that aren't a part of the Fn+Key scheme.

But in any event, I was able to come up with a workaround using AutoHotKey that mapped the true F10 and F11 keys to volume up/down which gave me the result I was looking for. If anyone else is interested, here's the script. You must enable "Function Keys" as the default special key behavior in BIOS for this to work.

F10::SoundSet, -2

F11::SoundSet, +2

Download and install AutoHotKey, then copy and paste the code above into a text file with the extension .ahk. To take it a step further, you can compile it into an EXE and have that EXE launch on startup (Google is your friend if you don't know how to do this). It's hokey and rigged, but it works. Better than the Acer solution, which is "there's nothing you can do, deal with it". 

Thanks anyway.

DysfunctionKey

Another update to say that I found a script that is much more streamlined than the one I threw together. Actually shows the volume change on a tooltip. 

http://www.paperlined.org/apps/autohotkey/always/volume1.ahk