Internet Keyboard buttons Windows 2000/XP

[imzjustplayin]

I've noticed that on Windows XP, when using any internet keyboard, when you push on the "moon" button (standby) it will put the computer into standby/hibernate/turn it off (assuming you have the "sleep button" in power management configured to put the computer into hibernate, off, or standby).

I found a random internet keyboard from an older compaq computer (1998) and it's one of those Internet Multimedia keyboards that's got an assortment of buttons up on top. Here is my question: Why do half of the buttons work despite me not installing any drivers into the computer? The play/pause, forward, stop, buttons work in a multimedia player, the volume buttons control the system volume and the "moon" puts the computer into standby. Then there are all these "internet buttons" in the top middle of the keyboard for things like shopping, e-mail, etc. but most of them except two work. What's really weird is that when I push on the magnifying glass (internet search) it brings up "Microsoft Calculator", press on the Shopping cart (internet shopping) and it opens an Internet browser and goes to my homepage.. It does all of this on my XP laptop and on my 2000 desktop, it does most of this stuff except the "moon" key (standby), the magnifying glass (search) and shopping cart (shopping) do nothing.

I'm trying to figure out why the computer is able to bring up certain applications on my computer by pressing various buttons despite not having the appropriate drivers and multimedia buttons configured and I want to know how and where this configuration is stored in the registry. I'm kind of miffed that the standby key on the keyboard doesn't work in Windows 2000 and while I'm sure I could find the original keyboard drivers, I'd like to figure out why the operating system by default is able to make use of so many of these keyboard functions, yet the other half can't be configured to work at all.

 

[imzjustplayin]

well it turns out the standby key on the keyboard DOES work on a 2000 desktop, just not on the ones I've tried it on. Now I'm wondering what exactly is preventing this from happening and how and where the information is stored that contains the information for keyboard mapping in the operating system.

Maybe I should re-word my question, where in the operating system for windows 2000 is the keyboard mapping information stored? I know it's not the drivers because I could have the same keyboard driver in the computer but use a different keyboard with different buttons and sometimes I'll get different actions on the "Internet keys".