Win10 Keys like Mac

Helps you make macOS shortcuts work on Windows.

(If you are in such a rush that can't even read 3 paragraphs, please head over to the Installation Instructions)

I have recently purchased a gaming computer with Windows 10 installed and as I have started using applications I am familiar with (Firefox, VSCode, ...), the hurdle to convince my brain to use different keyboard shortcuts than I those I am familiar with in macOS (my usual OS) became too big.

I've put together some basic recipe to make all the common shortcuts I use on macOS work on Windows.

Notes

• I've only tested this on Windows 10, but as far as I've investigated, most things should work™ in earlier versions.
• Use this at your own risk, bla bla bla... but most importantly, if you find some way to improve or simplify this further, please share away!
• Last time I used Windows, Windows 2000 had just been released, probably I've made this overly complicated.
• ❤️☕ If I had found a snippet like this one when I got my new computer I would have totally bought some coffee for the author. If this has saved some hours of research and increased just a bit your productivity, consider doing so.

Approach

There is a lot of magic surrounding the Win key in Windows. In essence, there are certain key combinations involving that key that can't be captured by software without doing a lot of magic. This becomes a bit of a problem when trying to remap Win + Tab to a similar behavior to the corresponding macOS shortcut ⌘ + Tab

To mitigate this, I use SharpKeys, a simple piece of software that allows you to remap keys. My strategy is to remap the Win key into something that is typically unused (in my case F20).

Given most common shortcuts using the Control key in Windows have a corresponding shortcut using ⌘ in macOS, I also remap the Win key to Control.

Once that replacement is done, I just use a simple AutoHotkey script to program the common remaps.

Installation Instructions

1. Download and install SharpKeys.

2. Download and install AutoHotkey.

3. Program the following remaps in SharpKeys:

   • From: Special: Left Ctrl (00_1D) To: Function: F20 (00_6B)
   • From: Special: Left Windows (E0_5B) To: Left Ctrl (00_1D)

4. Download the .ahk file from this repo, and make sure it starts with Windows. Probably the easiest option is to drop it in the startup folder. (You can reach that folder by going to Run and typing shell:startup and Enter.)