Janko's Keyboard Generator For Windows 95, 98 and ME

JKG Became Public Domain

Staring from 1 January 2007, Janko's Keyboard Generator For Windows 95, 98 and ME is not being sold anymore.

Please see the main JKG page for all details.

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The information and links that follow are not reflecting the current state of anything mentioned or linked. What follows is a relatively accurate snapshot of the several years old page on this address.

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Janko's Keyboard Generator

for Windows 95, 98 and ME

Installing KBD files made by Janko's Keyboard Generator For Windows 95, 98 and ME

This document is provided only for your convenience. By using the procedures described here you modify the settings of your Windows 95, 98 or ME system to let the Windows 95, 98 or ME know about the new kbd file. The kbd file format is designed by Microsoft to be used in Windows 95, 98 and ME. Janko's Keyboard Generator for Windows 95, 98 and ME just helps you generate the kbd files. The author of the program is not responsible for any effect caused by your possible erroneous modification of Windows settings, or by your generation of the incomplete kbd file. If you don't consider yourself experienced enough to modify the system settings you should invite somebody more experienced to help you.

Example

Let's say you want to have yours own Russian layout and that you downloaded or generated a kbdruph.kbd file.

If you've got or saved the file under some other name, rename it to the kbdruph.kbd.
Copy kbdruph.kbd to C:\windows\system
(Note: if your Windows is on another drive, locate the drive. If you installed the system under another name, and not windows which is default, locate it. E.g. if your Windows is installed in e:\winMee then copy the kbdruph.kbd to e:\winMee\system).
Download this REG file to the some folder of your computer, e.g to C:\
Locate the downloaded REG file in your computer and double click on it. The prompt appears, asking:
Are you sure you want to add... -- click Yes.
Now it's time to let the Windows know about your file.
Go to: Start/ Settings / Control panel / Keyboard / Language
Click Add...
Select Russian
Make sure that checkbox Enable indicator on taskbar is selected.
Press OK.

That's all!

The languages are switched from keyboard by the Left Alt + Shift key combination by default. You can change the combination by visiting Control Panel once again. To switch languages with the mouse, just click on the indicator in the taskbar, which is on the right of the taskbar clock.

Enjoy using the new keyboard layout!

Generalizations

The .reg file is here just to make it easier for the users not familiar with the RegEdit. In the above example, if you are modifying Russian layout, you can also manually modify entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ keyboard layouts\ 00000419\ layout file to contain kbdruph.kbd.

To install the file for some other language you have to find out the appropriate entry in Registry. Then you have to change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ keyboard layouts\********\ layout file value of that entry and replace it with the name of your new keyboard file. Here "********" stands for the value you discovered. Of course, you must place your new kbd file in the system folder. Never use already existing kbd file names. In the last step, select the language of your choice instead of Russian.

The appropriate entry in Registry is the entry that corresponds to the language for which you want to have customized layout, e.g. for Serbian language you have to find layout where the layout text has the value Serbian.

Written by Janko Stamenović