Why Doesn’t My F10 Key Act Like F10?

Different keyboards act differently.

I changed the title to reference F10 instead of Esc because this is a confusion I encounter regularly. It can apply to many other keys besides those two.

It’s simple enough to deal with, but you have to know how first.

Let’s look at the confusion arising from the “Fn” key.

The Fn key changes what other keys do, just like Shift or Ctrl. On some keyboards, it works backward, so F10 acts as if Fn is held down. Look for an Fn Lock key or a setting in your BIOS. During Windows setup, for example, you may need Fn+Shift+F10.

Fn is a modifier, like Shift and Control

Fn modifying some of the keys on the top row. (Video: Google Flow)

We’re all familiar with the Shift and Control keys. Hold down Shift, and you get an uppercase alphabetic character or a different symbol, as shown on the key you’re pressing. Hold down Control, and the key acts differently — the letter “c”, for example, becomes “Ctrl-C”, meaning copy to clipboard.

Fn works the same way. The problem is twofold:

• Different keyboards use Fn for different things.
• Some keyboards default the initial state of Fn one way (say, as if it were held down), and other keyboards do the opposite.

Most keyboards display the Fn version of a key with a symbol on the keytop, often in blue. So understanding what you’re getting is simply a matter of paying attention to the key.

It’s the second one that causes problems.

Fn or not Fn?

Consider this F10 key.

The email icon indicates that, when used with Fn, the key opens your email program.

Here’s the problem: some keyboards reverse this.

Expectation:

• F10: F10 functionality.
• Fn+F10: Email program.

Sometimes, though, it’s this:

• F10: Email program.
• Fn+F10: F10 functionality.

In other words, there’s something like an Fn-Lock (not unlike NumLock) at play in the second scenario that causes the key to act as if Fn is being held down.

That can be very confusing, especially when there’s no indicator that this Fn-Lock-like thing is at play.

Possible solutions

I can’t tell you THE solution, because, like everything else related to Fn, there’s no standard. However, there are some common approaches.

• Look for an actual Fn-Lock key. Sometimes the “Fn” key is an Fn-Lock, changing the default state; sometimes it’s just a modifier, changing only the key you type while holding it down. Sometimes Fn-ESC is the Fn-Lock sequence. Experiment to find out what you have.
• Change UEFI/BIOS settings. Sometimes, the default behavior of the Fn key can be altered in the UEFI/BIOS. Once again, this is complicated by the fact that different UEFI/BIOS interfaces put settings in different places or expose the functionality differently. (This is my preferred solution if present, by the way.)
• Check Windows keyboard settings. I’ve never seen this myself, but I’m told that in some situations, there may be an option to change the Fn key behavior. I expect this is highly dependent on drivers, and may even require installing keyboard-specific drivers to expose additional functionality.
• Try third-party software. Some utilities allow you to remap keys. It’s unclear if the Fn key is something you can remap, but it’s worth investigating.

More often than not, one of the first two options will clear up the situation. If they don’t, and the third isn’t available, I’d personally live with it.

Where I see it most often

Confusion with the F10 key can be a problem when installing Windows. Specifically, when you set up Windows 11 with only a local account, one of the instructions is:

On the keyboard, type SHIFT+F10. This will open a Command Prompt window.

For some people, that doesn’t work. This is usually because, on their keyboard, the F10 key requires the Fn modifier to kick in. In other words:

On the keyboard, type Fn+SHIFT+F10. This will open a Command Prompt window.

That’s what they need, and it gets the job done.

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