Inspiron 15 5509, use Home, End, F10, F11, F12, F5 keys without fn

Welcome to the Dell Community  @sneha_vik 

To better assist you, the members and I would need the exact model number of your laptop/desktop???

1. Go into your BIOS.

Power-on the system and start tapping the F2 key to enter System Setup.

2. In Windows:

Hold down the” Windows “key and tap the “R “key.

Then type msinfo32 and hit enter.

Best regards,

U2

PLEASE DO NOT POST ANY SERVICE TAGS!!!

@sneha_vik  As noted above, when asking questions like this, it helps to specify your model.  The keyboard layout you describe has been rolled out by Dell over the last few years on an increasing number of models.  Previously, Home/End were triggered as Fn+Left/Right, but that was removed when Home and End were moved up to the F key row.  This has prompted many complaints over the years since that change started to arrive, and recently on the XPS 13 9310, Dell introduced a firmware update that once again allowed Home/End to be activated via Fn+Left/Right, which was nice because that kept those keys near PgUp/Dn as well.  So if you haven't already, try updating your BIOS and then try that key combination.  If that doesn't work, then there's no way to achieve your stated goal using the built-in keyboard on your particular laptop.  The Fn key combinations can't be customized by the OS or applications running within in like other keyboard shortcuts can because the OS does not see the Fn key directly.  It only sees the single key result that the system passes up after you press Fn and something else.  And since Dell doesn't provide any firmware-level mechanisms for customizing Fn key mappings, you get what you get -- although in fairness I don't think other laptop vendors offer that customization either.  The closest you can come here would be to use an application like Autohotkey to map some OTHER key combination that doesn't involve Fn to the functions that you currently can't use with your Fn Lock in one state or the other, but then of course you run the risk of creating a keyboard shortcut collision with something else in the OS or a particular application.

I am using Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series.  I am working as  a software developer and I need to use F5, F10, F11 along with Home & End keys all the time. I have to use all these keys & I dont want to go with fn key. 

My home key is clubbed with F11 and end key is clubbed with F12 on my keyboard.

I am not sure why they have given extra digits/numeric keys section on the right hand side which I am not touching at all instead they could have given separate home & end keys.

@sneha_vik  Some people use the number pad if they need to enter a lot of numbers, like people who work in finance/accounting. But it sounds like you will need an external keyboard in order to use your system the way you want to. Or of course a different system. Based on the layout of your system’s built-in keyboard, there is no way to get that system’s keyboard working the way you want to use it.

yeah you are right may be I have to go with portable keyboard.

My current dell laptop is 15.6 inch with extra numbers section on right side & you are right finance/accounting ppl may need this. But in 14 inch HP laptops, Home & End key were separated from F10/F11 keys so I am little bit upset coz of this. Now each time I have to use Fn Key.

I have the same issue on my dell latitude 7520. This is going to be a problem for my productivity as I am used to press these keys a lot during coding. 

DELL,
is there any workaround to switch "Home" by 2nd "Alt" key and "End" by 2nd "Control" key?  

I use right side Alt and Control very less. I would be very helpful if you can reply here how to do it if possible.

I've just entered here to say that layout of the keyboard is annoying. Bad people designed this.

Hello Dell,

Just following up, is it possible to change 2 keys internal operations? 

It would be very helpful for me and many other people like me.

Thanks,

Sagar

Combining Home/End with F11/F12 without ability to reassign functional keys individually seems like a serious design flaw on Dell's part. As a software developer I find this very annoying!

I solved this issue with Microsoft PowerToys Keyboard Manager which allows to remap any key or shortcut:

Kudos to @jphughan for suggesting using remapping software

Use combine: Fn + Esc (to toggle f1 -f12) with or without fn pressed

Many thanks not only for solution, but also for PowerToys tool. Did not know about that.