trouble with keyboard

Recently, my HP computer had a virus attack where my OS (XP) was hosed. It
would boot so far and stop. Had to do a (supposedly non-destructive)
repair.

When the system finally was up, the keyboard (wireless) did no behave as it
had in the past. Several years ago, I had to replace the keyboard under
warranty. Got a new one from HP and as far as I can remember, it was
directly compatable, and had all of the functions of the original.

Apparently, when I repaired the OS, it installed the keyboard as an HID
keyboard device. My keyboard has programmable buttons for shopping, sports,
finance, etc., but now control panel does not indicate that buttons are
present. Likewise, there are buttons for controlling the disk drives; these
are also inoperable.

I searched the HP site, but came up empty as there are no model numbers on
the board. I also searched all of my diskets, CDs, DVDs, but don't seem to
have one.

I'm assuming that if I deleted the keyboard, then allowed the computer to
detect it, it would install it as before.

I'd like to regain full use of this keyboard. Any and all help appreciated.

HankG

On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:00:09 -0400, "HankG"
<hgxrp@hvacman.com> wrote:

>Recently, my HP computer had a virus attack where my OS (XP) was hosed. It
>would boot so far and stop. Had to do a (supposedly non-destructive)
>repair.
>
>When the system finally was up, the keyboard (wireless) did no behave as it
>had in the past. Several years ago, I had to replace the keyboard under
>warranty. Got a new one from HP and as far as I can remember, it was
>directly compatable, and had all of the functions of the original.
>
>Apparently, when I repaired the OS, it installed the keyboard as an HID
>keyboard device.

Having it installed as a HID is fine, expected.



>My keyboard has programmable buttons for shopping, sports,
>finance, etc., but now control panel does not indicate that buttons are
>present. Likewise, there are buttons for controlling the disk drives; these
>are also inoperable.
>
>I searched the HP site, but came up empty as there are no model numbers on
>the board. I also searched all of my diskets, CDs, DVDs, but don't seem to
>have one.
>
>I'm assuming that if I deleted the keyboard, then allowed the computer to
>detect it, it would install it as before.

Yes, deleting it and letting it reinstall would end up the
same as it is now, to regain use of the special function
keys you will have to find the driver on HP's 'site or
figure out who made it and get the driver from the
manufacturer's site or through a web search for alternate
driver locations.

There's probably some numbers on it, no? Not even something
molded on the back? If all else fails, post a picture of it
on an image hosting website and link to that picture here in
case someone recognizes it. You might also do a Google
Images search for HP keyboard and see if you can find it,
gain any further info that way.

"HankG" wrote:
>
> Apparently, when I repaired the OS, it installed the keyboard as an HID
> keyboard device. My keyboard has programmable buttons for shopping,
> sports, finance, etc., but now control panel does not indicate that
> buttons are present. Likewise, there are buttons for controlling the disk
> drives; these are also inoperable.

Not what you're looking for, but....

If you turn on "inline auto complete" in IE (Tools, Options, Advanced), you
can simplify browsing. Go to, say, your sports site. Now save that site as
a Favorite, with a name such as, "S sports" (without the quotes).

Now open up IE, click on the address bar (or hit CTRL-D), and just type, "S"
(without the quotes), hit Enter when it completes, and it will automatically
go to your "sports" page. This is an IE specific feature, so if you use one
of the boutique browsers (firefox, etc.) it won't work.

Jon