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Phonetic Keyboard Layouts
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 Updated to include Windows XP!
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Perhaps you are accustomed to typing in English, and prefer a transliterated keyboard layout for Ukrainian (where, for example, the Ukrainian
"A" is the same key as English "A", etc.)?
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Unfortunately, Microsoft's keyboard driver for Cyrillic/Ukrainian only supports the standard Ukrainian typewriter layout. That is,
a layout that looks like this:
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But you can change your layout to look something like this:
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How? Follow these steps (although we must warn you: you do so at your own risk. Although we have extensively
tested this procedure as well as the driver we've created, we cannot be responsible for loss of data or any other
problems you may encounter on your own computer):
Step 1. Download the transliterated/phonetic keyboard driver for your version of Windows.
(Right-click on the apropriate link below, and select Save As...)
Step 2. Install the keyboard driver.
- Save the downloaded file in a directory on your hard disk. Remember the name of that file (which differs, depending on which version of Windows you have).
- Note: for Windows NT, 2000 or XP, your user ID must have administrator privileges to do the next few steps - otherwise they will not work correctly!
If you don't have administrator privileges, have your system administrator or whoever has the administrator password for your machine grant them to you.
- In your C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory, you'll find a file with exactly the same name (there are many very similar ones - make sure you have the correct file!).
We recommend you rename that file to kbdur.OLD as a backup.
- If you don't find the file in C:\WINDOWS\system32, look around and you'll likely find it in a similarly named directory. Tha name of
the directory depends on how you installed Windows, so it may vary.
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Once you've renamed the old driver in C:\WINDOWS\system32, make a note of the timestamp on both the old and the downloaded files.
You'll need this information in the next steps.
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Copy the new downloaded keyboard driver file into C:\WINDOWS\system32.
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Check to make sure the copy operation worked by looking at the timestamp of the file in C:\WINDOWS after the copy.
In some instances, although no error messages were displayed, the copy operation may not have been successful because Windows
is using the old file in C:\WINDOWS\system32 and won't let you replace it.
- If the copy operation failed, reboot your machine and press F8 repeatedly while it restarts. You'll see a boot menu
that will allow you to start Windows in Safe Mode. Do that, and try copying the file again. This time it should let you
copy the file into C:\WINDOWS\system32 without error. Reboot the machine normally, and continue.
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Reboot your computer (shut down and restart it).
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Now, your Ukrainian keyboard layout is a phonetic one!
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If you ever want to revert to the original Microsoft driver (and the traditional Ukrainian typewriter layout),
simply delete the downloaded file that you moved into C:\WINDOWS\system32, and rename
kbdur.OLD to the name of the file that you deleted. Reboot. Your keyboard layout should be restored!
Problems?
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