I recently purchased a Dell Infrared Remote (Dell Part Number: MR425) for my Inspiron 1525. I knew my Inspiron had an infrared receiver and by default only a few keys worked in Windows 7 such as volume up/down and mute.
Using Winamp I was able to remap the keys on the remote to basic functions and add a custom command to show/hide (or minimize/restore) the Winamp window.
First, you’ll need Winamp and the IR Remote. Once you have the remote and Winamp, open the Winamp program.
Next, go to “Options” and then select “Preferences” or press CTRL+P.
A new window will appear. Select “Global Hotkeys” and then check the “Enabled” checkbox. This will “un gray” the unavailable hotkeys.
To begin remapping keys, I selected the “Playback:Rewind” hotkey. The default Winamp action will appear in the “Hotkey” area at the bottom of the window.
Once the default Winamp text appears in the “Hotkey” box at the bottom of the screen, click once in the Hotkey box. Usually your cursor will blink in the box waiting for you to type in a new command. Point the infrared remote at your laptop (FYI: the sensor is next to the audio jacks in the front of the laptop). Once your remote is aimed at the laptop, press the “rewind” button on the remote (or any key that you wish to act as the rewind function). The action will change text. Mine changed from the default CTRL+ALT+LEFT to CRTL+ALT+B. Once the action has been changed, select the “Set” key to save your changes.
Continue to change the default actions to the new actions on the remote. When you’ve completed your changes, close the window. You may receive an error message.
Although I received an error message, the actions I changed continued to work when I pressed the key on the remote. In other words, “Stop” continued to “Stop”, “Playback: Previous in playlist” cycled backwards, and “Playback: Next in playlist” cycled forwards.
You might also notice a red “X” next to the remapped keys. Once again, I still have the appropriate remapped functions.
You can even add a new action with the remaining keys. For example, I added the ability to minimize and restore the Winamp window. Select the down arrow in the “Action” drop-down menu.
In my case I selected “UI:Bring to front/hide Winamp” (UI = User Interface).
Once the appropriate action has been selected, click in the “Hotkey” area and press the appropriate key on the remote and select “Add” to add the function to the list of hotkeys. I used the “checkbox” key on the remote.
If all goes well you should have successfully mapped your Dell infrared remote to Winamp.
