i8042prt driver and keyboard mappings

NTDEV
1

I can see some scancode to virtual key mapping parameters under i8042prt registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

Those are: “LayerDriver JPN”, which may be equal to kbd101.dll or kbd106.dll, “LayerDriver KOR”, whic is normally kbd101a.dll.

My question is: what these mapping dlls have to do with i8042prt driver? The mapping happens in user mode, and has nothing to do with the keyboard driver. How Windows uses those parameters? Thank you

2

One more totally confusing thing: this MSDN article

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927824

Suggests modifying the same i8042prt parameters to fix USB Japanese keyboard mapping. How i8042prt fits into the USB keyboard stack and why its parameters are affecting USB keyboards??

3

Bad design. Before win2k i8042prt was the only keyboard driver, and key mapping DLL settings were put under its service key, even though the driver doesn’t read these values. Win32k.sys and others read them, that is why it fixes USB keyboard settings as well.

d

Bent from my phone

From: xxxxx@gmail.commailto:xxxxx
Sent: ?4/?8/?2014 10:49 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest Listmailto:xxxxx
Subject: [ntdev] i8042prt driver and keyboard mappings

I can see some scancode to virtual key mapping parameters under i8042prt registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

Those are: “LayerDriver JPN”, which may be equal to kbd101.dll or kbd106.dll, “LayerDriver KOR”, whic is normally kbd101a.dll.

My question is: what these mapping dlls have to do with i8042prt driver? The mapping happens in user mode, and has nothing to do with the keyboard driver. How Windows uses those parameters? Thank you

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4

Thank you Doron, I appreciate your prompt answer.

Do you by any chance know why specifically Japanese and Korean languages got these special settings? What’s wrong with getting the mappings in standard way, just like other languages do (i.e. loading appropriate kbd*.dll according to input language? Thanks

5

No idea

d

Bent from my phone

From: xxxxx@gmail.commailto:xxxxx
Sent: ?4/?8/?2014 4:03 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest Listmailto:xxxxx
Subject: RE:[ntdev] i8042prt driver and keyboard mappings

Thank you Doron, I appreciate your prompt answer.

Do you by any chance know why specifically Japanese and Korean languages got these special settings? What’s wrong with getting the mappings in standard way, just like other languages do (i.e. loading appropriate kbd*.dll according to input language? Thanks

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

Visit the list at: http://www.osronline.com/showlists.cfm?list=ntdev

OSR is HIRING!! See http://www.osr.com/careers

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer</mailto:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>