How do you disable the Fn key on a keyboard in Windows?

Question

What I'd like to do is disable the function key on a keyboard entirely. We have devices that are in an environment where the Fn key is never needed and the "alternate" functions of the function key row (referred to as 'media keys' from now on) cause more issues than they solve. Case in point users accidentally disable the trackpad on the devices. Using function lock does not solve this problem because, in their environment, they eventually unlock the media functionality and hit various media keys causing support chaos. They also accidentally hold down the Fn key on the keyboard and activate a media key. The most viable solution is to turn on the original function key functions and disable the Fn key entirely.

One major caveat: a third party application can't be used.

One major preference: to not have to do this through the BIOS (should be able to be done remotely)

Answer 1

As said, it's not possible to remap the Fn key on most PC keyboards as it doesn't generate a scan code. You can only remap the Fn+key combinations which can be done by editing the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\Scancode Map (except some keys that generate triple-byte scan code). Key mapping programs like SharpKeys or KeyTweak are in fact just does the heavy lifting of modifying the registry for you

SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make certain keys on a keyboard act like other keys. For example, if you accidentally hit Caps Lock often, you could use this utility to map Caps Lock to a Shift key or even turn it off completely. This official release includes support for up to 104 mappings, an extensive list of available keys, and a “Type Key” option to help when managing mappings. As it relies on internal support within Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 you must be running one of these OS’s for this Registry hack to work.

https://www.randyrants.com/category/sharpkeys/

So you can edit the mapping then extract the key to a *.reg file for use on all machines with the same keyboard. No 3^rd software is needed

But the better solution is to persuade the IT department to allow the use of some 3^rd party software like SharpKeys or compiled AutoHotkey scripts. After all, SharpKeys or KeyTweak is simply a registry-editing software and doesn't run any scripts, access the network or run in background. Just run it once and you're done, and more importantly SharpKeys is open source so everyone can verify what it does.

Update: you don't even need 3^rd party solutions. Microsoft PowerToys is an open source 1^st party software and supports remapping out of the box

Another way is to use Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and define your own mappings, but it may not work for all keys on the keyboard. After exporting the layout you can also use it for other PCs

See also Remapping via the Registry's "Scancode Map"