How to get the OS to recognize the extra keys on my keyboard

Question

I have an old Dell USB keyboard (model RT7D10) and it has multimedia keys (volume control, next/prev track keys, etc...). I connected the keyboard to my laptop and it works fine, but the OS does nothing when I press the multimedia keys.

How can I get the OS to recognize the multimedia keys?

I've seen drivers for XP, not nothing for Win7

Answer 1

I never experienced any problems with Dell keyboards. They're usually just plug-n-play. There are some standard multimedia keys (volume, back, forward) that any Windows >= XP is supposed to recognize out of the box, if the hardware provider implemented them the standard way. For the rest, you'll need a driver.

My suggestion is:

1. Plug in the keyboard
2. Wait for the "recognizing new hardware" dialog to complete
3. Verify that the new hardware was successfully installed
4. Check your device manager (right-click "Computer" > Manage > Device Manager) and verify that there are no issues (question marks, exclamation marks), that your keyboard appears under "Keyboards" and that you have at least one HID device under USB.
5. If all else fails, try contacting Dell support. They may have a generic Windows 7 driver that may cover your specific model.

Answer 2

Heres something worth try. Open up windows update and click on the link that says "Optional updates are available". As you can see... mine has 3 optional updates.

You can also try opening up the device properties from device manager or from "keyboard" in the control panel. Then click "Update Driver" and let it check online.

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Answer 3

This keyboard is simply not supported under Windows 7.