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).