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MagicWindows

Apple’s Magic Keyboard layouts on Windows. Native, free.

The Magic Keyboard’s Command key becomes a Windows key

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In short

Dual distribution channel: native Tauri/Rust desktop app (NSIS/MSI x64) AND public Svelte 5 web SPA on Cloudflare Workers with 12 downloadable ZIPs (6 layouts × 2 archs).

Cross-compile x64 + ARM64, EN/FR i18n, monorepo workspaces, 78 tests, 0 TS errors, 0 clippy warnings.

Highlights

The MagicWindows welcome screen on Windows: “Welcome to MagicWindows”, automatic keyboard detection or a manual choice among six layoutsThe final MagicWindows screen: “Layout installed successfully!”, with the Win+Space reminder to switch to the new layout
Real screenshots of MagicWindows

  1. Automatic detection

    Apple keyboard identification via scancode stream: 3 to 5 keystrokes are enough

  2. Shared visual preview

    @magicwindows/keyboard-visual component (920 LOC) consumed by 4 desktop pages + 1 web page: single source of truth

  3. One-click install

    KLC → compiled DLL, copy to System32, HKLM registry, force-activate with no reboot

  4. Modifier toggles + F12 remap

    Cmd↔Ctrl, Opt↔Cmd, F12 → Calc/Search/Mail via Scancode Map composition: toggles + remaps coexist (V0.3)

  5. Post-install Health Check

    ToUnicodeEx probe via PowerShell + live keyboard modal: verifies the layout is actually active (V0.3)

  6. Bluetooth Pairing Assistant

    Auto-detects Apple HID (VID 0x05AC) + 2s/5min polling, redirects to Detect on pairing (V0.3)

  7. Web SPA + R2 downloads

    magicwindows.mindvisionstudio.com (Cloudflare Workers) with interactive preview + 12 versioned ZIPs on dl.mindvisionstudio.com (R2 public)

  8. Cross-compile x64 + ARM64

    build.rs drives MSVC Hostx64/{x64,arm64} and produces 12 deterministic DLLs: release reproducible byte-identical between runs

By the numbers

  • ~12.7K Lines
  • 78 Tests
  • 6 Layouts
  • 12 DLLs (x64+ARM64)
  • 3 Active domains

The story

Why I built it

The low-profile MacBook keyboard: I’ve never recaptured that typing feel on a stock Windows setup. The obvious fix: buy an Apple Magic Keyboard and plug it in over USB. Except the layout doesn’t match, the modifiers are reversed, and off-the-shelf solutions (Magic Utilities & co) run at €20-30 per year on subscription for a problem solved with a few Windows Registry writes.

So I built it: native Tauri/Rust, open source, one-click install, free. V0.4 opened a second channel: a public web site (Cloudflare Workers) that serves an interactive preview and hosts 12 downloadable ZIPs on R2, for users who just want a DLL without installing the desktop wrapper.

Structural technical decisions

Tauri v2 + Rust backend

Native Windows binary able to touch Win32 / registry / elevation cleanly: impossible with Electron without shipping Node and Chromium in the bundle.

KBD DLL compiled at build, cross-compile x64 + ARM64

Windows rejects a purely logical layout: it wants a DLL in System32. klc-codegen (968 Rust LOC) generates the C source, build.rs (438 LOC) detects both MSVC Hostx64/{x64,arm64} toolchains and produces 12 DLLs (6 layouts × 2 archs). ARM64 is optional: a warning if the toolchain is missing, x64 build continues.

Composed Scancode Map (V0.3)

Modifier toggles + F12 remap + future remaps coexist in a single Scancode Map without clobber. Byte-by-byte identity tests on the composition. Allows adding new remaps without breaking previous ones.

Monorepo workspaces + dual desktop/web channel (V0.4)

The KeyboardVisual component (920 LOC) extracted to @magicwindows/keyboard-visual is consumed by 4 desktop pages + 1 web page: single source of truth. Web SPA Svelte 5 served by Cloudflare Workers static-assets, 12 ZIPs hosted on R2 behind dl.mindvisionstudio.com with custom domain. Deterministic release pipeline (EPOCH mtimes + statConcurrency:1) → byte-identical ZIPs between runs if sources didn’t change.

The non-trivial challenge

Coordinating install across elevation and non-elevation

Installing a Windows keyboard layout means: a DLL in C:\Windows\System32 + an HKLM\...\Keyboard Layouts\<id> key (admin) + an HKCU activation per user (non-admin). An elevated PowerShell can’t reliably write into the original user’s LOCALAPPDATA, and the non-elevated parent doesn’t see the admin script’s result.

Solution in install.rs: the elevated PS script writes markers into HKLM (the only reliable shared channel), the non-elevated parent reads them back and performs the HKCU activation.

Lesson learned

On Windows, the real complexity is not "writing a keyboard file": it is respecting the elevation / non-elevation boundary. Any flow that touches System32 + HKLM + HKCU needs a communication channel between the two worlds (HKLM here, used as a mailbox).

And once the desktop is stable, opening a parallel web channel (R2 downloads + interactive preview) costs little but doubles the product’s discovery surface.

Tech specs

Where it runs Tauri 2.10 · Rust 1.77+ · Cloudflare Workers · R2 (public)

MagicWindows technologies, by area
Frontend Svelte 5.55 (runes mode) · TypeScript 6 strict · Vite 8 · Tauri API
Backend Rust 1.77+ · Tauri 2.10 · winreg · serde_json · KLC Engine
Cross-compile MSVC Hostx64/x64+arm64 · klc-codegen · deterministic build.rs
Web SPA Hash routing · Reactive EN/FR i18n · Responsive 3 breakpoints
Edge / Infra Cloudflare Workers · R2 (public) · 2 custom domains · Wrangler 3
Tests / CI Vitest 2.1 (41 cases) · cargo test (37 cases) · GitHub Actions · cargo clippy clean

Apple’s Magic Keyboard layouts on Windows. Native, free.

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