How to track keyboard keystrokes at boot time in Windows

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I want to get the keys that are pressed at boot time. How to track which key was pressed, at boot time. Is there any option other than device-drivers?

Posted 2-Jun-15 23:30pm

Sam L

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Mehdi Gholam 3-Jun-15 5:59am

Why?

Sam L 3-Jun-15 8:51am

I am just told to obtain information of a pressed key & forward it. Depending on the data I forward, there might be some work to be done. I just need to obtain which key was pressed at boot time. If user presses 'A' then I should be able to get that value.

Andy Lanng 3-Jun-15 5:59am

At boot-time, the only processes that can run are bootstrap programs. These include the bios program and driver loaders. The drivers are not actually loaded until the boot is complete.

You can look into Kernal level programming but I wouldn't bother. There must be an easier way to achieve what you need than rewriting the OS.

What do you need?

Sam L 3-Jun-15 6:53am

I am totally new to such kind of programming. I am just told to obtain information of a pressed key & forward it. I just need to obtain which key was pressed at boot time. If user presses 'A' then I should be able to get that value.

ZurdoDev 3-Jun-15 7:41am

1. Reply to comment so user is notified.
2. No, at boot time, there is no way to do it. Later on, yes, but not right at boot time. Unless you write your own BIOS.

Sam L 3-Jun-15 8:45am

So, is device driver the only solution for the problem?

ZurdoDev 3-Jun-15 8:50am

Depends on what you mean by "at boot time." Directly at boot time no, because device drivers still are not loaded.

It would help to understand what you are really needing because there may be a different approach.

Sam L 3-Jun-15 9:00am

I don't know the steps & sequence in detail, how all this works. But, if it is not possible "at boot time", then I think I have to do it once the driver is loaded. But is there any other way to this than using device drivers?

Sam L 4-Jun-15 7:50am

Can we query existing Windows keyboard device driver to get the information of a pressed key?

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