Asus Media Hotkey Itunes Compatability

It took me several hours to find all the information needed for me to modify my media hotkeys (Fn + Arrow Key) so that they would work with Itunes. While this information is present elsewhere on the internet and on this forum, I feel it is worth it to reproduce it all here in one post:

Like I said, this is a process for linking the Asus media hotkeys, which are by default only functional with Windows Media Center & Windows Media Player, to be used with other media players, which in my case meant Itunes.

The primary information and sources come from the following locations:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/150016-asus-notebook-keys-v1-3-a.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/150016-asus-notebook-keys-v1-3-a-13.html#post5716422
Dan Dar3: Asus Notebook Keys 1.3
3mpty's lab: How to get ASUS notebooks' media keys to work with Winamp/MusicBee/Etc

The first steps are to download the files attached to this post. View attachment AsusNbKeys_v1.3&update.zip

These files need to be extracted to a folder where they will remain and operate from. For me this meant placing a new folder in my Program Files which I titled Asus Notebook Keys, then extracting the files from the .zip to that location.

Once you've done that you need to add a shortcut so that the AsusNbKeys.exe runs automatically. You can do this by going to your start menu, scrolling down to find your startup folder, then right-clicking and opening it. Create a new shortcut and navigate to the location of AsusNbKeys.exe wherever you extracted it to (eg. Program Files/Asus Notebook Keys). This will ensure that AsusNbKeys.exe runs in the background whenever you start your computer.

Then run AsusNbKeysCtrl.exe from the Program Files location. This will open a program to edit your hotkeys. Click "Add New Event" then perform the hotkey combination you want. For example, I wanted to be able to play/pause music with Fn + Down Arrow, so I clicked on "Add New Event" then held down Fn and Down arrow before releasing them together. This will create a new event. Fill in the description window and select what function you want the key to have by picking it from the dropdown menu where it says "Keystroke".

Finally hit save (top right, same row as "Add new event". You should see your new event appear in the defined events list above. Now hit "save all changes to system". If you see an error message saying something along the lines of "Can't synchronize with existing ATK0100 event!" then you have some additional work to do. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc for Windows 7) and terminate the HControl.exe process.

Next you'll need a hexadecimal editor. If you don't have one you can use XVI32 at Freeware Hex Editor XVI32

Once you have an editor installed, open it as an Administrator (usually by right clicking and selecting "Run as Administrator" and navigate to Program Files (x86) \ ASUS \ ATK Hotkey \ HControl.exe, which you want to edit/open. Search for the string "ATK0100 AC EVENT". Immediately after the string you should see a "%d", this is the source of the error. You can get rid of the "%d" by replacing the corresponding values in the hex panel: carefully replace "20 25 64" with "00 00 00". Save this change to HControl.exe and restart your computer. You may now proceed with the same steps as discussed before of setting up the specific hotkeys.

Good luck!

I take no credit for any of the programs or work involved in this process, I am merely gathering and synthesizing separate processes and procedures which I followed to arrive at the desired final result. Please see the sources listed at the beginning of my comment if you wish to view the original sources and their authors.