Fn keys not working in Windows 7

[steve62388]

I have a Late 2014 Retina iMac with wireless keyboard. I had been running Windows 8 via Boot Camp but recently decided to downgrade to Win 7 Home Premium x64.

I can't for the life of me get the Function keys to adjust brightness and volume working under Win7.

Things I have tried:
- Downloaded the support files through Boot Camp Assistant onto a USB key. This includes trying each of the three steps in BCA one at a time as recommended in another thread. Installed Windows as per the proper instructions.
- Boot Camp Control Panel is loaded under Windows. From within BCCP I can alter the attributes of my Apple wireless trackpad. Selecting the Fn key options does absolutely nothing, pressing [FN]+[F11] or just [F11] with either setting only ever activates [F11] not volume control.
- Tried installing the keyboard driver direct off the USB key. It comes up with the error 'Cannot Complete the Device Driver Installation Wizard. The device driver installation wizard was unable to find any drivers designed for your machine.'

 

[steve62388]

I'm slowly starting to track this down, it's got to do with the keyboard drivers. For some reason my k/b is not detected as an Apple keyboard hence refusing to install the drivers.

At this stage I'm not sure what to do to force the correct driver to load.

 

[Altemose]

@steve23094 On your install USB you should be able to locate a folder with the Boot Camp software. Within that folder should be a dedicated package with the keyboard driver. While you have attempted to reinstall it, try to see where the wizard loads the drivers to and manually point Device Manager to that location on your C: drive.

 

[steve62388]

I did it, I solved the problem! I'm quite proud of myself.

It turns out the Boot Camp Assistant downloads a version of the drivers that are incompatible with my particular combination of hardware.

Apple's own support article here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204048 is wrong, claiming that you only need to use BCA for Win7 x64 and the late 2014 Retina iMac.

Go through the Boot Camp install process as normal, it will load all the drivers that are compatible. The drivers BCA downloads are dated 27/02/15. These will not work with the Apple Wireless Keyboard. You have to manually download the previous version 5.1.5640 dated 31/01/14 here https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1721?locale=en_US (I couldn't find any version for manual download after that, I think it's the latest available).

Copy them over to a USB key or something and whilst in Windows navigate to \BootCamp5\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple. Run AppleKeyboardInstaller64.exe. It will now install the driver and voila properly operating Apple k/board!

I'm surprised I seem to be the only person in the world that has this particular combination of hardware and software who has solved this problem. Well, at least I couldn't find anybody else via Google that has been speaking about it.

 

[Altemose]

@steve23094 I am glad that you got it working! Report back with any issues...