Poorly designed Yoga 3 Pro keyboard workaround

Several users have been griping about the keyboard of the Yoga 3 Pro. Also certain reviewers have lambasted it (e.g. Gizmodo).
First, the physical side of it is lacking for the typical quality you expect from premium Lenovo laptops (e.g. Thinkpad). The keys do not travel much and it is easy to make mistakes -- I would say my typing errors have increased on the magnitude of 50% versus a X series Thinkpad (pre-chiclet keys).
Second, and the main point of this post, is that several keys are either missing (e.g. Insert) or relegated to Fn key combinations (F1 through to F12, Home and End). Meanwhile, there is AMPLE room for more keys in this form factor. For example on X series Thinkpads, they had keys right up to the edge of the device, and were able to put in a full 2 rows of Ins/Del Home/End PgUp/PgDn, like on a full-sized keyboard.
As a result, typing on this keyboard is a real pain both physically, and in software terms since certain OS functions ask you to press keys that don't exist (e.g. Insert on the pre-boot Bitlocker screen -- sorry no Insert key!). Certain common keyboard commands become awkward now because of needing to add in the extra Fn+ combination (e.g. ALT+F4 to close a program, or F5 to refresh a web page).
But by far one of the most annoying features is co-locating Home with PgUp and End with PgDn, i.e. you need to press Fn+PgUp to get Home. Home/End is a very efficient mechanism in wordprocessing to quickly get to the beginning and end of sentences, beginning and end of cells in Excel when editing formulas, etc. F2 to quickly edit a cell in Excel without clicking the mouse -- now you must use a combination to get to it. If you do frequent word processing, this keyboard will frustrate you as a result.
Meanwhile, Print Screen gets a full key?!? I could see that key as one becoming a Fn combination, since there is no potential for a user to frequently and repeatedly press Print Screen. I seriously wonder if the person/team that designed this layout tested it at all with users "in the field" who actually TYPE.
Anyway, there is a workaround of sorts depending on which keys you prefer to have direct access to. You can remap keys using the Windows registry and something called a Scancode Map.
For example, I myself have noticed that Home/End are more important for me than PgUp/PgDn in terms of quick access, as I do use them extensively for editing documents. So, for example, you can use the registry to remap those keys and switch them around -- that is, Home to PgUp, PgUp to Home, End to PgDn, PgDn to End. So now, when you press the PgUp key, you are actually pressing Home.
If you don't use Caps Lock or Print Screen for example, you can reassign them to other keys you do (e.g. Insert, or any other key actually).
The process is described in the link below, and the author has a specific example of remapping the Home/PgUp, End/PgDn keys:
http://www.thatsgeeky.com/2010/11/keyboard-annoyances/

I tried that I got some sort of error saying it's not compatible with my system.  I ended up doing a restore, and one by one tracking down which program is needed in order for the system to disable the keyboard and trackpad appropriately.
It ended up being Lenovo Harmony:
http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles/wwha020e.exe
It seems you need Harmony if you'd like them to be disabled in stand, tent, and tablet mode.
Thanks for the help, anyway.

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  • Problems with new Yoga 2 Pro (battery, fan noise, yellow, screen orientatio​n, on-screen keyboard)

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  • Keyboard Yoga 3 pro doesnt work

    hi
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    Hello,
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    If that doesn't work there might be a factory fault in your unit. In that case use the warranty to have it fixed or replaced.
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  • Yoga 2 Pro No Virtual Keyboard in Tablet Mode?

    I can't find a way to get a virtual keyboard to come up when Yoga 2 Pro is in tablet mode...even when I click on a search box in my browser or any other text box nothing comes up. Is there a way to make a touch keyboard come up so you can still type?
    Many thanks!

    Hi. Here it is. I tried to record the off/on process of this problem. On the seond part i typing in notepad and you can see interuption of letters. 
    https://yadi.sk/i/3GBZepRabSEpf
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  • Yoga 2 Pro: Enable keyboard in tablet mode

    Hi everyone. I'm very new here. I just got my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro i7 8GB last month. And I'm wondering if it's possible for the keyboard to be enabled while in tablet mode. Since I wanna make it as my external keyboard and I'm gonna use an external monitor for bigger screen through MicroHDMI-HDMI connection. Please let me know how to do it. I hope someone can help me here. Thank you

    Thank You Indest! I can't help you as I am a linux user.
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    Much better if Lenovo FINALLY ANSWERS this question!!! Boy, that's not a customer oriented approach. Rewrite your corporate brochures and take out that you care about customers. Lol

  • No Keyboard backlight and flashing Pixels New Yoga 2 Pro

    Picked up my new Yoga 2 Pro 13 from BB last night with the i7 and 8gig of ram. Ive been waiting months for this thing to come back in stock and Im getting sad.
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    I think your right. I was hoping there would be some solution in the community thats just like " oh yea run this utility and hold your tongue to the left while you press ctrl+alt+shift+~+esc and it will turn everything back on and refresh your pixels

  • Keyboard question on Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro

    Hey people,
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    Thanks you
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    I don't see this on my Y2P, either.
    Could you snap a picture of your keyboard and link it for us to take a look?
    Thanks.
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  • Yoga 2 Pro poor performance in all modes

    I have noticed that when I use my Yoga in laptop mode it functions very well, however in any other mode it acts differently, the videos won't stream without lagging, there is a delayed screen response after a touch, pages take a while to load up fully. Should I need an update or is this something inherent within my model?
    It means that I have not been able to use the Yoga as I would have liked on a few occasions. I would appreciate any feedback, before I decide to call customer services / send the model off for a look over.
    Thanks

    Sounds like it could be DPTF throttling the CPU?  Can you deactivate DPTF and see if that helps?
    (See http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Idea-Windows-based-Tablets-and/Hey-Lenovo-what-s-up-with-DPTF-amp-Yoga-m... for more information.)
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