The company I work for, Abeo, have standardized on IBM Thinkpad computers for their consultants. I currently have a IBM T43p, which is an awesome computer. The only disadvantage of using IBM Thinkpads is that they don’t have a special Windows key. 

The Windows key is used for many timesaving shortcuts, such as:

• Winkey + Pause = display the Systems Properties page
• Winkey + R = display the Run dialog box
• Winkey + M = minimize all windows
• Winkey + D = minimize all windows. Press again and desktop apps reappear.
• Winkey + Shift + M = undo minimize all windows
• Winkey + F1 = starts Windows Help (F1 by itself brings up Help in the current application)
• Winkey + E = start Explorer
• Winkey + F = start Find
• Winkey + F + CNTL = start Find Computer
• Winkey + B = Sets focus on the task bar
• Winkey + TAB = cycle through taskbar buttons
• Winkey + BREAK = display Systems Properties panel
• Winkey + L = lock Desktop
  

The solution to the problem is to use a technique called keyboard remapping. Basically what you do is that you map one key to another. I’ve remapped “Caps Lock” to act as my “Left Winkey”. Who uses “Caps Lock” anyway? Well, the guy who thought me to program years ago used “Caps Lock” instead of shift..! But that’s a different story...   

Key remapping in Windows can be achieved simply by writing some information to the registry. The cool thing is that you don’t have to write these registry settings by hand. A guy called randy, over at http://www.randyrants.com/, have written a tool called SharpKeys. This tool allows you to configure your keyboard remapping in an easy manner. A screenshot of my current remapping is shown below:

Update: You can do some keyboard remapping in the default IBM Thinkpad software. How ever, it doesn’t let you remap all the keys. You only remap left and right shift, left and right ctrl, alt and alt gr to the Windows key. I guess the most reasonable choice would be the right ctrl, at least if you’re running Virtual PC and have to use left ctrl + alt instead of alt gr.

Happy remapping!