Because I am now working on a .Net project and I don’t want to work on a PC , I decided to install Windows as guest on my Mac in VirtualBox.

Everything works perfectly fine except that Windows doesn’t like my Apple keyboard. What a surprise!

After a quick search on Google, I found a fix for:

• the Apple German keyboard: http://www.miscdebris.net/blog/2009/04/17/apple-keyboard-keymap-german-for-windows-running-as-guest-on-mac-os-x-host-in-virtualbox/
• the Apple Swedish keyboard: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/1871#comment:11
• and even the MacBook Pro UK keyboard: http://www.linickx.com/archives/2931/macbook-pro-uk-keyboard-layout

But I didn’t find anything for the ‘normal’ Apple UK keyboard. Unfortunately, I can’t use the MacBook Pro UK keyboard layout because it is slightly different than the USB and Wireless Apple UK keyboards layout.

So my friend Google didn’t leave me any other choice than create my own keymap for this keyboard using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.

You can download it clicking on the following link: Keyboard Layout Setup Files (English UK – Apple). And here is the source KLC file if you want to make change to it: Source KLC File for English UK – Apple Keyboard Layout.

To use, simply unzip, run setup, and then in your keyboard settings (Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options) change to “United Kingdom – Custom”. You may wish to remove the default UK keyboard to avoid confusion. If it still doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to reboot Windows!

This is working well on my VirtualBox but it should also work on any Windows instance (i.e. VMWare, Parallels, etc).