keyboard -music key- cant get to open wmp

sparkicks1

im not sure if this is in the wrong section and sorry if this sounds a little stupid...

On certain keyboards it has a music key with audio controls (eg play stop next song etc) Normally the music key would be configed to open up a media player (windows media player or when i installed winamp that instead)
a few days ago i managed to somehow switch it to open up creative sound mixer

ive tried everything cant seem to find the right keywords on google ive tried reinstalling all the audio drivers windows media player i looked up on documentation on the keyboard and it said that the key cant be programmed that it refers to some default audio control on the pc ive tried looking in all the audio settings for creative wmp and windows and tried remappers for my keyboards

i know this seems a big deal for a little thing but its just really bugging me if anyone has had this problem i would be gratefull for some feedback/sugestions/solutions
thanks
sparkicks

edit: after pressing the key repetidly i managed to spot this icon coming up which i took a screenshot of it flashes on the task bar b4 the creative surround mixer pops up [IMG][/img]https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/55468/35061.PNG

Redisle

Try this,(im presuming you are running xp).. go to start and press set program access and defaults. press the arrow next to custom and scroll down to default media player. Choose windows media player and press okay. Next time you open up the creative software if it asks you to set it as default press no,

ab

DonkeyStyle \o/

It's probably stored somewhere in the registry... if you find out the exact filename of the Creative sound mixer that's running, open regedit.exe you should be able to do a search for occurances of the Creative mixer .exe in the registry.
Then I'd say the trick is finding the right reference to it, I'm sure some clue will lie in the registry path... then try changing the path and filename to something else... you might have to log-out and log back in again for the changes to 'take'.
Or delete the registry key and see if it prompts you to pick one next time.

Cue the standard regedit disclaimer: Of course all this assumes you're comfortable working in the registry, and there's the opportunity to bollox up your windows install if you make a mess of it... I'd say as a precautionary measure, set a restore point or right-click & export each registry branch you plan on changing to a '.reg' before you change it.
That way you can just double-click the file and roll back that part of the registry.

That's how I'd do it anyway.

Anti

Im not sure on this, but i had a similar problem with winamp opening instead of wmp before, to fix it i removed the keyboard drivers, and reinstalled them again. Then it worked again. Hope this helps ya

sparkicks1

well i did try the reg but couldnt find anything that i would be confident changing. most looked like non related stuff
i dont have drivers for the keyboard i looked on dell website for my make
for the default windows programs under start menu i tried it but aparently it isnt set by windows since the window still popped up again for creative surround mixer
sorry for the hassle

philologos

for some reason my USB wireless keyboard worked with the music key without having drivers or special software installed.

PogMoThoin

Jakkass wrote:

for some reason my USB wireless keyboard worked with the music key without having drivers or special software installed.

My old dell multimedia KB works without drivers, even in my new self-built rig. Plug & play.

8T8

That icon looks application specific or at least I don't recall seeing something like that in XP before.

There could be a program loading at start-up which acts as the interface for the keys if you can find that you may locate whatever folder is resides in and possible .ini configuration files.

Try checking msconfig and see whats there.

sparkicks1

i found a resource cd that came with my pc and it was full of references i got the program that opens this up it uses mmkey.exe. its the icon that i attached in the first post
i managed to find out i have Dell Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard got docs here http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/acc/P37555/ it says:
launches the sound card mixer program (System Requires Dell custom software)
which i installed off the resource cd when i open it it just launches that mmkey and opens the surround thing. setup just does the same thing
theres no ini just a
readme telling you to open setup
version txt file
dll
setup.exe
mmkey.exe

im assuming that something overwrote it or something to open up another program but im not sure what...
edit : the mixer is whats opening took me a while to realise its called "surround mixer" didnt spot that.

8T8

Well you could try a few things from this new information;

1) Ask on the official Dell forums see if you get lucky.

2) Search the registry for the mmkey entry and see if any are related to the special key functions

3) Attempt to override the key functions with a program that remaps keys may or may not work with the Dell mmkey.exe running the background.

sparkicks1

i sort of solved the issue and thanks for everyones help so far
its really glue and tape to keep it up (metaphorically) but i placed the windows media player exe in the place of the mmkey under C:\dell
thanks again if someone has a more official way of fixing the problem though please give me a shout thanks