Sorting it all Out Michael Kaplan's random stuff of dubious value Be sure to read the disclaimer here first!
The thing released today that I am going to talk about is not the coolest product that will be widely available starting today, January 30, 2007.
It will not be used by as many people.
It will not change as many lives.
It is not localized into as many (or frankly any) other languages.
It will not have as big of an impact on the various companies providing hardware and software for computers.
But I still think it is cool as hell, cool enough that I do not resent it being buried under whatever else is going to be released on this fine day.
What product am I blathering about? You probably know already.
It is the one that fixes this problem and this problem and this problem, not to mention some other important bugs and problems that have been reported here and elsewhere.
Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 has now been released!
The download page can be found right here. The download is a bit larger than (a little over twice the size of) its younger cousin (MSKLC 1.3), though if you are looking for 64-bit support (AMD64/x64 or IA64), or if you are looking for custom locale support on Vista, you'll probably consider it to be worth the .NET Framework 2.0 requirement.
If not, then you'll still find MSKLC 1.3 is available, and it can run just fine with version 1.0 or 1.1 of the .NET Framework.
Enjoy!
This post is sponsored by every freaking character in Unicode 5.0
Does it fix the problem I reported here?
I assume you mean the limitations around UTF-16, i.e. only one code point in SGCAPS or dead keys (I can't remember which off the very top of my head)?
No changes were made to the limitations in the underlying Windows platform or the code in the USER subsystem, which is where the limitaion comes from. Though we did improve detection of the problem here for SGCAPS.
No, I just found the bug -- the one with the unpaired surrogate throwing an exception that only happens on the 102 key. That bug was not fixed in 1.4, it is being tracked for a future version.
Congrats!
Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator version 1.4 has now been released. See http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8BE579AA-780D-4253-9E0A-E17E51DB2223&displaylang=en
Sorting It All Out : Not the coolest, but 다운로드 1.3을 비스타에서 설치할 경우에 몇가지 문제가 있었다고 합니다. (위의 블로그 링크에 문제들로의
The man of a thousand Unicode characters, Michael Kaplan , recently blogged about the new version of
Michael,
Could you please clarify one thing regarding MSKLC 1.4?
I've found only 32-bit Vista in ur lab :) it's why I am asking:
a) I do know - from you (have read here) and others that under XP64 (not Vista) a user must have _two_ custom keyboard files:
- one in %WINDIR%\System32 directory
- another in %WINDIR%\SysWOW64 directory - for "older" 32-bit applications running under this 64-bit OS
b) Is it the same under 64-bit Vista? I mean, I use MSKLC, it prepared for me several directories and under 64-bit Vista:
(a) file from i386 sub-directory should go to the %WINDIR%\System32 directory
(b) and file from wow64 sub-directory should go to the %WINDIR%\SysWOW64 directory
Right? (64-bit Vista has such directory as well as XP64, right?)
I am asking because someone wrote that while it was necessary under XP64 it is not necessary anymore under Vista, that is under 64-bit Vista only (a) should be done and that file will work fine for both 64-bit applications and for older 32-bit ones.
It's not correct, is it? We do need (a) _and_ (b) under 64-bit Vista, don't we?
--
Thanks,
Paul
Yes, under 64-bit you need two files -- and the setup that is built will always have them. This is true of Vista and of 64-bit Windows prior to Vista.
Related question: if I use my "Windows DDK 3790.1830" to build a keyboard layout driver for Windows Server 2003 in x64 or IA-64 build environments, only one .dll is generated, presumably the non-wow64. What's the mistery ?
Cristi
Um, MSKLC is nice enough to build the two separate binaries. If you are using the DDK you have to do all that yourself. The difficulty in accomplishing this is why MSKLC exists!
Yes, MSKLC is useful tool, but for x86 keyboard .dll files I am using DDK, it makes more fun :) (and I suspect that back in 2002 I had no choice in doing otherwise)
I see that the WDK is out, I will download and play with it a little. If I will not succeed, no problem, I am happy with the new MSKLC also :)
More fun for who? That format is simply awful to work with, and quite unforgiving....
But anyway, make sure to be careful -- it is way to easy to create keyboards that won't work well or at all when you do it the hard way, something that MSKLC goes out of its wasy to help guard against. :-)
Fun for me, don't know about others :)
It's now more than five years since the users are happy with my keyboard driver, so I suppose it is well written. Apart from that, with the DDK I am offering support for NT 4.0 versions too, something that MSKLC can't do as far as I know (for exemple on NT 4.0 there are no multimedia keys).
Not sure what you mean -- the keyboards should install on NT 4.0, too?