MediaDirect remapped to Web Browser (M1530/M1330/etc)

Hi all,

I just recently bought a M1530 (as you can see in my signature) and decided to install Vista x64 because I have 4gb of PC6400 (800MHz) ram. It's taken quite a while, but I finally got the 64-bit alp touchpad driver, audio driver, and upek fingerprint reader (thanks to Samuel613). The final thing I wanted to do was make my MediaDirect button useful and load the browser (in my case Firefox) when I pressed it.

I've seen a lot of people on the forums do all kinds of crazy techniques to get this to work and I didn't like the idea of having to install all this Dell software then run a modified dmx.exe executable that just calls another application. So I decided to determine the scancode of the button and just remap it. I also don't ever use the context menu button (the button between the right ctrl and left arrow button on the m1530) so I made that button start up the calculator (which I use a lot).

To make it easy, it's all included in a registry key. Just double click it and it'll add it to the registry. Then reboot and enjoy the new useful functions for your keys.

 

Wow! This was great! thanks.. Mind telling us how you did this?

 

Thanks a bunch!

 

I can say that this does not work on the Vostro 1500 with 32bit os.

 

Thx, it works fine. By the way, is there any chance to turn on that media Direct button's LED ?

 

What happens if the laptop is off and you press the re-mapped MD key?

 

It will boot into Windows

 

Thanks, Flaxx.

I've ran the reg import, and will see how it goes on reboot.

BTW, thanks for mentioning me with the UPEK link - I searched for days to find that, and I'm glad you expressed your appreciation that it worked for you.

 

Oh, i wanted to repost and say that after rebooting, your reg hack works also on my vostro 1500. Only problem is that it launches IE. People still use that browser?

 

I think it launches the default browser, so if your default isn't FireFox then it will launch IE instead.

 

Wow, this is really useful. As someone earlier mentioned, how exactly did you do it so that other keys can be programed to open other things?

 

This is excellent, and I will mostly likely use this novel bit of programming to boot Opera. Could you document how you went about coding this modification please so that we can understand the technique and perhaps take the functionality furthur should we wish.

Thanks for sharing with the community.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but thank you for posting this! Before I try this, is there a way to revert back if you somehow don't like the results? Can I still use MediaDirect? Do I just have to launch it from the Start bar instead? Thanks!

 

Having now rebooted and trying it on my M133O, the context-key does launch Calculator, but the MediaDirect key launches firefox AND MediaDirect. I suppose if you uninstall MediaDirect, then it will work as described, but I'd like to have the option of keeping MD on the machine.

 

To the OP, can you make an uninstaller on the chance that one might want to stop using this tweak?

 

Just delete the registry key ?

 

Yeah, I'm also interested in how you made that changed key

 

Hi everyone,

Sorry for my exorbitant delay. Just been really busy and any spare time I've been playing around with my new Samsung i617 which shares a similar novelty and customization as say a new m1530

I basically read this thread and hopefully I don't miss anyones questions. The first question I'll answer is in reply to ValkyrieLenneth: using the technique i did, which is actually quite simple, i CANNOT control the media direct LED or any other LED for that matter. I have controlled LED's before (namely turning LEDs on and off on Asus laptops), but it requires C/C++ and talking to the ACPI driver. I'm sure I could do the same thing with Dell, but it's not a trivial thing without documentation, and I'd basically have to send a variety of messages to the ACPI driver and watch for physical changes and/or tracing the assembly code when i send a message to the driver and watching for break statements. If you don't know what this means, the take home message is it would take a bit of time (probably 2 or 3 hours for me, since I'm not a guru at assembly) for me to control the LEDs.

As for how I did this little hack, you're all gonna laugh, because it's actually EXTREMELY SIMPLE. When you press any key, it generates a scan code. You can read about it here. Windows allows you to remap scan codes by adding a specifically formatted registry value called "Scancode Map" to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

If you want to reverse all the mappings, simply delete "Scancode Map" and windows won't remap the scan codes.

The format of Scancode Map is described here. In summary, there's 4 bytes of version info, 4 bytes of flag, 4 bytes indicating the number of mappings (including the null terminator), the mappings (each 4 bytes), then the 4 byte null terminator. Under WindowsXP and Vista, the header-version and flags are the same as the null terminator (i.e. zero).

If you take a look at the key I made, it's all in hexadecimal (to save space and it's easier to read that a bunch of 0's and 1's) which is base 16 and thus is equal to 2^4 bits therefore there's 8 hexadecimal digits for 4 bytes.

So we'd have (0x0001 = hex 0001 = decimal 1)
0x00000000
0x00000000
number of entries + null terminator
mappings (any multiple of 8 hexadecimal digits)
0x00000000

So here are the scan codes for the buttons I was interested in (i determined these scan codes by capturing it when pressed -- that's more complicated, but there are plenty of programs out there that'll tell you the scan code of the key your pressed):
0xe05d = context menu
0xe012 = dell media direct button
0xe021 = calculator (enhanced MS media keyboard)
0xe032 = WWW home (enhanced MS media keyboard)

I wanted to do the following mapping:
0xe05d -> 0xe021
0xe012 -> 0xe032

So the key structure will look like this:
0x00000000
0x00000000
0x00000003 (there are 2 mappings + null terminator)
0xe05de021 (simply 0xe05d to 0xe021)
0xe012e032 (simply 0xe012 to 0xe032)
0x00000000

Super simple eh? Now if you're sharp, you'll probably be saying "WAIT, that's nothing like how the key looks like"... well that's true, because we're on x86 machines we're on little endian machines (the byte ordering is largest to smallest) so we mirror the ordering of bytes. so...

00,00,00,00,
00,00,00,00,
03,00,00,00,
21,e0,5d,e0,
32,e0,12,e0,
00,00,00,00

And there you have it. I tried to be as explanitive as resonably possible. I apologize to any computer scientists/engineers that are probably bored out of their minds by now.

If you just glazed over this and don't really care about the details, all I basically did was tell the kernel "when i press context menu button, remap to calculator button" and "when pressing media direct, remap to WWW Home". So when you press those buttons, windows thinks you pressed the calculator button and WWW home button on a Microsoft Enhanced Media keyboard respectively. It's a super fast operation, introduces no additional overhead or need for third party applications.

So go ahead and look at other scan codes -- you can remap anything that generates a scan code (mice, joysticks, even your dell remote). Be careful with the remote though, because dell programmed the ACPI bios to evoke the same scan code as buttons on your keyboard. In English, if you remap say the right arrow on the remote to the letter A, your right arrow on your keyboard will also be rerouted to A!!! NOT GOOD. So be careful, this has the potential to render your computer USELESS.

Here are the scan codes for my m1530 (other Dell laptops will probably be the same -- but don't take my word for it, figure the scan codes out or look them up):

--- laptop ---
skipbackward = E010
stop = E024
play = E022
skipforward = E019
mute = E020
decrease volume = E02E
increase volume = E030
wifi detector = E011

--- remote ---
gray up = pageup on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
gray down = pagedown on keyboard (not recommended to change!)

black up = up arrow on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
black down = down arrow on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
black left = left arrow on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
black right = right arrow on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
black checkmark = E01C (numpad/keypad enter)

gray back arrow = backspace on keyboard (not recommended to change!)
fastrewind = 0030 (the same as ctrl+shift+b) - remapping these will not change the ctrl, shift, or f keys... it's the combo of them all that this key envokes
fastforward = 0021 (the same as ctrl+shift+f) - remapping these will not change the ctrl, shift, or f keys... it's the combo of them all that this key envokes

 

Thank you so much, flaxx

 

Flaxx rocks for putting the scan codes together to map this out...

Some time ago I was trying to figure out how to map the Dell MediaDirect key to launch Windows Media Center under Windows Vista... wasn't able to find a way without using AutoIt so I gave up.

Seeing Flaxx's thread renewed my interest in accomplishing this.

While searching for a scan code for the Windows MediaCenter launch key I came across a post in a similar thread over at Tech Support Guy forums.

The poster found the following:

To set the button to run a different application IN WINDOWS change the registry keys here:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MobilePC\HotStartButtons\0
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\MobilePC\HotStartButtons\0
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\MobilePC\HotStartButtons\0

Change the ApplicationPath key from:
"C:\Program Files\Dell\MediaDirect\MDirect.exe"
to whatever you want!

This is cleaner than some other methods because your shortcuts to MediaDirect will still work.
Verified on Windows Vista Business, requires a restart. Also note, this will have no effect on the button pressed when the computer is off.

I tried this and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to. Now when I press that noob house button it launches Windows Media Center.

Just wanted to add this for all of those trying to remap this button to an actual application...

 

Can you change the context menu ion a similar fashion?

What happens if I press the media direct button when the laptop is off and media direct is not installed?

 

The process I outlined is only for the MediaDirect button. To change the context menu button you should use Flaxx's method.

If you change the path for the MediaDirect button via the method I posted, when the lappie is powered off and you press it, it will launch Dell's MediaDirect provided you have it installed.

 

This little app might help too, to avoid having to dive into the registry:
http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/
I'll admit, I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say how well it works, or if it works under Vista.

 

Great stuff! But I love my context button, how would I modify the reg-file to modify only the MD-button to Firefox?

 

instead of the registry reading:

00,00,00,00,
00,00,00,00,
03,00,00,00,
21,e0,5d,e0,
32,e0,12,e0,
00,00,00,00

you'd change it to:

00,00,00,00,
00,00,00,00,
02,00,00,00,
32,e0,12,e0,
00,00,00,00

 

Thanks Flaxx!

*repped.

 

Hi Batboy

Thanks for the instructions - I have followed and remapped my media button to launch Media Centre in Vista. However when I launch Media Centre by pressing the media direct button it does not launch to full screen and is not the active application. ie. If Messenger is running, Media Centre sits in the background with my windows tool bar displayed. If I then click on Media Centre the app jumps to full screen. When I launch Media Centre from my start menu it always loads to full screen, but no from the media direct button.

Do you know of any settings to get Media Centre to launch in full screen when pressing the media direct button?

Cheers

 

This may be a bit off-topic but i was wondering if anyone could help me. I have an Inspiron 640m that has just been upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate and had a new hard drive, as a result there is no mediadirect partition and the mediadirect key does'nt do anything. I want to use it to open either Windows Media Centre or Windows Media Player. I used Keytweak as suggested by Lordbug and it says the scancode for the key is 57362. I don't know where to go from there, can anyone help me?

 

Muchas gracias...

 

Hi Ross,

Sorry for the late reply. I haven't logged into Notebookreview.com for a very long time! To answer your question, your scan code program is working correctly. It's giving you back the scan code in decimal (base 10) which is kinda annoying because to reprogram the scan codes you use hexadecimal (base 16). 57362 (base10) = e012 (base16). So my huge long FYI post still applies. There are many decimal to hexadecimal calculators available online to help you out ( http://www.parkenet.com/apl/HexDecConverter.html to name one). Hope this helps.

 

Yea i use it from time to time

 

Just to say that i try app, which was LordBug found, and yes that app works well on Vista 32bit Business. Link to that app was:
http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/

I dont have Media Direct OS installed and I need this only to give that button something to do(open calculator for example).
You may open calc (if you wish) with Win+R key and putting "calc" in open and pressing enter (longer version, if you need MediaDirect button for something else).

So if somebody think that what flaxx sugest is complicated, may try this litle application and do remaping even more easily.

Nevertheless, flaxx was responsible for finding solution for this.
Thanks
_____________
Dell Inspiron 6400
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 120GB
CPU: Dual-Core 1,7GHz
VGA: Ati Radeon X1400 with 128MB and Shared System Memory 895MB

 

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR!! THANK Q! It works perfectly

 

Thanks BatBoy, I was looking to change that to Windows Media Center instead of that dumb Dell media center knockoff crap. Your registry mod worked perfectly.

The location of Media Center in Vista is this:
%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehshell.exe

 

I have read through this thread and i saw someone got it to work with media center however i still am lost. I am trying to get the media direct button on my M1530 to open up vlc. Reading through this thread i still have 0 clue how i am to do that.

 

See my guide HERE for complete instructions on remapping your MediaDirect button to anything you want...

 

Sweet guide.

 

I follow that however i dont have ControlSet002 and when i goto the hotstartbuttons for each i dont have a 0 directory after. I dont have any dell media direct crap installed.

also that turn off lcd screen how do you turn it back on? that might actually come in handy because I play movies from my laptop to my tv and i use the extended desktop feature with the nvidia drivers but if i can make it so that buttons turns the lcd off on the laptop but still displays the image on the tv once the movie is over i would like to have the laptop display is image again.

 

thanks for doing all the work on this: just did an upgrade from 32 bit to Vista 64 and dumped the dell media thing nd this tool allows me to use that button far more productively.
many thanks

 

thanks very much.

 

This worked with my Inspiron 15, thanks. I reinstalled vista after getting a new hard drive. I didn't really want media direct so this works out perfect.

Web browser and calc are perfect for my needs.