Hotkeys not working - e.g. fn+f5 (reply to several posts)

[rjwheele]

Lenovo T61, Windows XP/SP2

Disclaimer: I don't know how general this fix is but, after fighting for weeks trying to fix some non-working "fn" keys by replacing .dll's and drivers, this corrected the problems and they have not recurred. We'll see how it goes...

After some forced system maintenance three of my hotkeys quit working:

• fn+f5 (wireless radio control)
  fn+f7 (presentatioin or display scheme), and
  fn+f8 (Ultranav trackpoint and touch pad controls)

I was also receiving the following error message when selecting:

• Start -> Control Panel -> Power Options
  'An exception occurred while trying to run "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\WINDOWS\system32\powercfg.cpl",Power Options" '
  

I tried corrections found in several posts on the Internet including replacing .dll's and drivers. In some cases the problem seemed to go away but reappeared in a day or two. I have no idea how the problems are connected but this fixed all of the ones listed above.

I received the following suggestion as a correction to the Power Options problem. As far as I know it no dangerous side effects. The only thing I noticed was that my personalized power schemes disappeared, leaving only the standard ones.

Try this...

• Click on Start->Run,
  Type: powercfg /RestoreDefaultPolicies and
  hit Ok.

Good Luck!