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There are simple registry tweaks to disable the CAPS LOCK or the INSERT key. For example disable the INSERT key and disable the CAPS LOCK key. I was not able to find instructions to disable both keys simultaneously.

The idea is to enter a binary value in the registry at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout:

  • To disable CAPS LOCK:

    "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,3A,00,00,00,00,00

  • To disable INSERT:

    "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,52,E0,00,00,00,00

Is it possible to combine these so that both keys are disabled at the same time? Since 3A + 52 = 8C in hexadecimal, the following makes sense:

"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,8C,E0,00,00,00,00

but I may not have understood the combinations correctly.

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  • Did you try it with that value? What was the result? – Seth Jan 27 '17 at 12:05
  • I haven't tried it on my host PC yet but I had a quick go on a Windows XP virtual machine and it didn't appear to work (ie. INSERT still operated, though CAPS LOCK was disabled). Need to do more tests. Strange that there are many articles describing the steps to disable one or the other key...but not both! – AlainD Jan 27 '17 at 12:07
  • Probably because it's uncommon to even disable one of those? Have a look at this or more specifically this (indeed I didn't think about that scenario). It appears you don't do a (binary) operation on them but rather include multiple values and you would need to increase the number of mappings to three. – Seth Jan 27 '17 at 13:14
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In my opinion, in order to disable both Caps-Lock and Ins, it is necessary to add or set new REG_BINARY key "Scancode Map" in "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout" to binary value hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,52,E0,00,00,3A,00,00,00,00,00 .

03 is number of mapped keys increased by one, i.e. 2+1=3

E0 52 is scan-code for Ins

00 3A is scan-code for Caps-Lock

zeroes are to map the selected scan-code keys to no-where

see

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-caps-lock-key-in-windows-vista/

https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes-1.html

At least this satisfied me at my Win10 and Win7 PCs.

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