Using your Apple Remote In Bootcamp
Last month when my boss wanted a new laptop we did lots of research and then he settled on an Apple MacBook. He was not ready to make the switch yet though, so we installed bootcamp and got Windows XP up and running. My boss spends a lot of time traveling and giving presentations, so powerpoint is probably the application he uses most on his mac. And while we were visiting yesterday we came across and idea. He already has a usb remote he uses when giving presentations, but how cool would it be if he could control powerpoint with his apple remote.
After just a little searching I found an application EventGhost which is an application which allows you to hijack the events of your system and redirect them to other things. With EventGhost I was able to add an HID device to the app. And then in the event window I could see the event that was fired when I pressed buttons on the remote. Next step was just to add a action for emulating left and right arrows on the keyboards. Then you just drag the event from the left window (HID.button2) on to the action you want fired (left arrow) and EventGhost will start to send the correct button presses for you.
Just like that he can now use his apple remote to guide his presentations in Windows XP in bootcamp on his MacBook.
10 Aug 2007 Simeon
Oooh, interesting! Now where did I put my remote…
Did you have to do something to get your Apple Remote detected?
The only “Generic HID” options I get are “Touchpad” and “Apple Internal Keyboard”.
Hey Peter,
In the devices section, I found one actually called “HID” and I added that one. If you didnt figure it out I can check again and do a screen capture when I get back to the office. I am at 360Flex in seattle till wednesday.
Found it now - I was on an old version of BootCamp.
Only buttons 2/3/4 (prev/next/play) seem to work on my remote.
Is that the same with yours, or do you know how to get 1/3/5 working (vol up/down and menu)?
Thanks! That worked so well!! I’m a novice programmer (i.e. am afraid of code) and the tutorial online was VERY helpful in allowing me to edit the program to run my powerpoints with my apple remote.
I am now able to begin my slide show from any slide, and move forward and back.
However, the “Menu” button, and the “Up” and “Down” keys do not seem to register. I would like to enable a few more features (start / exit slide show) but I cannot without the use of at least 1 additional key.
Any suggestions?
Can I control my Windows WITHOUT Apple MacOSX interference?
….with Apple Remote, offcourse
I’ll wait your response on my mail, thanks!
Thanks a lot for this info,
I have been searching for such info and you saved my day. The good thing is I CAN USE MY TOUCH PAD with two fingers to scroll up and down.
To do this just add HID Plugin for Touchpad and you are done. Unfortunately No other events for the Touchpad is shown. Why is that ?
Amazing
Awesome. I made the center button start the slide show in PowerPoint by linking it to F5.
Hey Semon,
I installed ARW.exe Apple Remote for Windows so that drivers are emulated in Windows XP for my Apple Remote. I also installed EventGost but I still cannot seem to configure it right. I followed you instructions in this post but it’s still not working. My configuration tree in EventGhost 0.3.5c 908 is as follows:
Autostart
Start Program: POWERPNT.EXE
Plugin: HID (IR Receiver, Apple Computer Inc Connected Yes)
Trigger Event: set to “o”
Left mouse button
However when Power Point launches and I go to “show” mode my Apple Remote still won’t “left click” to change slides.
What am I doing wrong?
Hi Rod,
Unfortunately I am not running this anywhere anymore so i can’t test to show you where you might have gone wrong. Sorry.
Good Luck
Thanks Simeon, but I finally figured out how to get it working with Power Point 2008 on my MacBook Pro. The critical step was setting the HID settings in EventGhost to “use raw data as event name.” Once this was done, when I pressed the remote I could see the signals generate events in EventGhost in the left pane. (For example HID .2587EE4509) which is a left click of the remote. A right click generates an ID of
HID .2687EE4506. After this I only needed to “add macros” in the right pane and set them to “keystokes” (left arrow/right arrow) and then drag the HID events from the left pane to the macros that I wanted them to bind to in the right pane. I saved my configuration and minimized EventGhost & launched Power Point 2008 and wholla it worked like a charm. If any of your posters need a screen-cap of my configuration just let me know. Take care.
Rod
Hey Rod,
Thanks for posting back with the magic combination. I am sure that will be useful for other folks trying to make this work.
sim