Function Key Dell laptop

When it comes time to purchase laptops for employees, many businesses turn to Dell, both because of their aggressive business pricing platform and the durability of their computers. If you're primarily using your Dell laptop for multimedia purposes, such as giving business presentations or as a media center, you can disable the function key features of the laptop and instead use the keys as media controls. In order to do this, you'll need to enter the system Basic Input Output System [BIOS] during the boot sequence so you can give new instructions to the computer.

1. Restart your Dell laptop.

2. Watch the boot screen. Look for the notation at the bottom instructing you to "Press the XX key to enter system BIOS." In most Dell laptops, this will be noted as the "F2" key, but this may differ on your system. When the message appears, hold down the appropriate key to enter the BIOS screen.

3. Navigate to the "Advanced" tab by pressing the right arrow key.

4. Scroll down to "Function Key Behavior" on the "Advanced" tab by pressing the down button. Press "Enter."

5. Press the up/down arrow keys to move the selection to "Multimedia Key First."

6. Press "F10" to save your settings and exit.

7. Allow the system to reboot for the changes to take effect.

The "Fn" key on a Dell toggles the multimedia keys on and off. On some models, you must press "Fn" to activate these multimedia keys, but the keyboard operation can be changed on the Dell PC so that the multimedia keys are always on. This setting, however, can interfere with your work; some enterprise applications assign special functions to certain keys on the keyboard and Dell may override these functions if the key in question is also a multimedia key. You can change the settings on the Dell so that the multimedia keys activate only when "Fn" is pressed.

1. Turn on or reboot the computer. Press "F2" on the Dell logo screen to enter the BIOS settings.

2. Use the arrow keys to select the "Advanced" tab. Scroll down to "Function Key Behavior."

3. Press "+" or "-" to change the setting to "Function Key First." Go to the "Exit" tab.

4. Select "Exit Saving Changes" and then press "Enter" to fix the function key on the Dell and restart the computer.

In most dell laptop [e.g. Studio 1555, Inspiron 1545, Inspiron 3000, Inspiron N5010 etc] the F1-F12 keys at the top of the keyboard are dual function with Multimedia/OEM keys such as volume and screen brightness etc. The problem is, is that the Multimedia/OEM keys are the default, and you have to press the Fn key to get the F1-F12 key to work.

For example, this means you have to hit Alt+Fn+F4 to close a window, instead of the regular Alt+F4. This is really annoying. Is there a way to reverse the default functions of the F1-F12 keys in Windows?

Ideally this is possible without some kind of third party hotkey manager.

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This article describes keyboard features for the XPS 15z Inspiron 5223 system. Including Function keys, Language settings and quick launch.

Table of Contents:

1. Function Keys [Fn]
2. Change the keyboard language
3. Quick Launch buttons

Function Keys [Fn]

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Change the keyboard language

1. Launch Charms from the Desktop interface

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Click Language to launch the language settings window and change the settings.

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Quick Launch buttons

On the Inspiron 5523/15z Quick launch buttons are located on palmrest assembly above the keyboard

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Latitude, XPS, Inspiron 15z 5523, XPS 15Z L511Z

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