Why aren't the Samsung Series 7 fn keys able to change screen brightness?

Question

Samsung Series 7 laptops use Fn+F2 and Fn+F3 to increase and decrease display brightness. When I press the those keys, an indicator appears on screen but no change is made to the brightness. Why?

Answer 1

The fn keys are handled by the Samsung dmhkcore.exe process ( C:\Program Files (x86)\Samsung\Easy Settings\dmhkcore.exe ). If you are logged in as a limited user, the Fn combinations with F1, F2, F3 and F12 will not work.

Terminate the process and rerun it as administrator.

Edit: I have found that opening the exe in a hex editor and searching for asInvoker (near the end of the file) and changing it to requireAdministrator will get the UAC prompt to appear at startup (so terminating it and restarting it is no longer necessary).