"Aeroplane" (flight mode) icon in system tray doesn't change to wifi signal strength icon

A friend has a Windows 10 laptop and keeps accidentally pressing the flight
mode key (one of the F keys on the top row) which turns the wifi off.
Unfortunately, when he presses it again the aeroplane icon in the system
tray does not change back to the multiple-bars wifi signal strength icon,
even though the PC is now in fact connected to the wifi network.

Has anyone encountered this problem and have they found a fix for it? He
needs a simple way of determining whether he's connected (ie whether he's
recovered from accidentally disabling wifi). I'd look in Control Panel |
Network Connections but that's too complicated for him. I've suggested if he
gets a "no connection" response from his browser, press the "aeroplane" key
once and try again to access a web site.

The friend has Parkinson's so he's not very dextrous and may accidentally
hit the wrong key more often than many people. It doesn't help that his
laptop (Asus F555L) has the logic of the F keys reversed: you press the key
on its own to access laptop-specific functions such as display brightness,
flight mode, sound on/off, and press Fn and the F key to get (for example)
F5. This makes it easier than otherwise to turn off something critical such
as wifi.

Does anyone know whether there is any way (maybe vendor-specific) to disable
the relevant F key from putting the laptop into flight mode? Bit of a long
shot, that one!

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:26:27 +0100, "NY" wrote:

A friend has a Windows 10 laptop and keeps accidentally pressing the flight
mode key (one of the F keys on the top row) which turns the wifi off.
Unfortunately, when he presses it again the aeroplane icon in the system
tray does not change back to the multiple-bars wifi signal strength icon,
even though the PC is now in fact connected to the wifi network.

Has anyone encountered this problem and have they found a fix for it? He
needs a simple way of determining whether he's connected (ie whether he's
recovered from accidentally disabling wifi). I'd look in Control Panel |
Network Connections but that's too complicated for him. I've suggested if he
gets a "no connection" response from his browser, press the "aeroplane" key
once and try again to access a web site.

The friend has Parkinson's so he's not very dextrous and may accidentally
hit the wrong key more often than many people. It doesn't help that his
laptop (Asus F555L) has the logic of the F keys reversed: you press the key
on its own to access laptop-specific functions such as display brightness,
flight mode, sound on/off, and press Fn and the F key to get (for example)
F5. This makes it easier than otherwise to turn off something critical such
as wifi.

Does anyone know whether there is any way (maybe vendor-specific) to disable
the relevant F key from putting the laptop into flight mode? Bit of a long
shot, that one!

Have you looked for options pertaining to function keys in the machines bios / UEFI settings screen?

NY wrote:
A friend has a Windows 10 laptop and keeps accidentally pressing the
flight mode key (one of the F keys on the top row) which turns the wifi
off. Unfortunately, when he presses it again the aeroplane icon in the
system tray does not change back to the multiple-bars wifi signal
strength icon, even though the PC is now in fact connected to the wifi
network.

Has anyone encountered this problem and have they found a fix for it? He
needs a simple way of determining whether he's connected (ie whether
he's recovered from accidentally disabling wifi). I'd look in Control
Panel | Network Connections but that's too complicated for him. I've
suggested if he gets a "no connection" response from his browser, press
the "aeroplane" key once and try again to access a web site.

The friend has Parkinson's so he's not very dextrous and may
accidentally hit the wrong key more often than many people. It doesn't
help that his laptop (Asus F555L) has the logic of the F keys reversed:
you press the key on its own to access laptop-specific functions such as
display brightness, flight mode, sound on/off, and press Fn and the F
key to get (for example) F5. This makes it easier than otherwise to turn
off something critical such as wifi.

Does anyone know whether there is any way (maybe vendor-specific) to
disable the relevant F key from putting the laptop into flight mode? Bit
of a long shot, that one!

OK, this is cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Lock

"Many Windows/PC users have found a workaround using Microsoft's
Intellitype Pro software, which allows a user to assign
keystrokes/macros to the function and accessory keys. For example,
assigning a macro {Press F1} to the function key F1 renders
the F-lock issue moot, since the OS will interpret the key press
as F1 regardless of the F-lock state."

So even if the system didn't have an F-Lock key, you can
assign the function you want to that key with Intellitype.
And presumably with other utilities of that nature
(macro key software).

Paul

In article
"NY" wrote:

A friend has a Windows 10 laptop and keeps accidentally pressing the flight
mode key (one of the F keys on the top row) which turns the wifi off.
Unfortunately, when he presses it again the aeroplane icon in the system
tray does not change back to the multiple-bars wifi signal strength icon,
even though the PC is now in fact connected to the wifi network.

Has anyone encountered this problem and have they found a fix for it? He
needs a simple way of determining whether he's connected (ie whether he's
recovered from accidentally disabling wifi). I'd look in Control Panel |
Network Connections but that's too complicated for him. I've suggested if he
gets a "no connection" response from his browser, press the "aeroplane" key
once and try again to access a web site.

The friend has Parkinson's so he's not very dextrous and may accidentally
hit the wrong key more often than many people. It doesn't help that his
laptop (Asus F555L) has the logic of the F keys reversed: you press the key
on its own to access laptop-specific functions such as display brightness,
flight mode, sound on/off, and press Fn and the F key to get (for example)
F5. This makes it easier than otherwise to turn off something critical such
as wifi.

Does anyone know whether there is any way (maybe vendor-specific) to disable
the relevant F key from putting the laptop into flight mode? Bit of a long
shot, that one!


Generally the toggle involves 2 keys simutaneously... for example a
function key "fn" plus the "f2" key (or whatever key has the wifi
togggle.

You can also do/undo this through Winodows 10 settings.

"Anonymous" wrote in message
servers.net...
Generally the toggle involves 2 keys simutaneously... for example a
function key "fn" plus the "f2" key (or whatever key has the wifi
togggle.

On this laptop the wifi toggle etc is a single key and you need two keys
(F2+Fn, for example) to get the F2. I

You can also do/undo this through Winodows 10 settings.

You mean change between one key and two key for accessing things like wifi
on/off, screen brightness, etc?

If so, I'll have to find out how you make that change.

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:26:27 +0100, "NY" wrote:



The friend has Parkinson's so he's not very dextrous and may accidentally
hit the wrong key more often than many people. It doesn't help that his
laptop (Asus F555L) has the logic of the F keys reversed: you press the key
on its own to access laptop-specific functions such as display brightness,
flight mode, sound on/off, and press Fn and the F key to get (for example)
F5. This makes it easier than otherwise to turn off something critical such
as wifi.

This sounds like a job for AutoHotKey, free, will do almost anything,
not just characters, but a lilttle tricky to program, especially
exclusions.

Or Keyremapper, which costs money but walks you through setting up
changes. There's a test period of iiirc 30 days so you can see if it
works before paying.

If you cna't reverse what the Fn key does, I'm sure you can move the
whole thing out of any function key.

I use AHK and turned num / and * intto volume up and down, and pause
into Mute.