If you’ve recently purchased an HP laptop or performed a clean installation of Windows, you might have noticed a small frustration: pressing the top row of keys (F1 through F12) doesn’t do what the icons on them suggest. Instead of adjusting volume, screen brightness, or airplane mode, you get traditional function commands like “Help” (F1) or “Refresh” (F5).
| HP Series | Default Behavior | Fn+Esc Toggle Works? | BIOS Option Name | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | Action Keys ON | Yes | Action Keys Mode | | HP Pavilion (2020+) | Action Keys ON | Yes | Hotkeys Mode | | HP EliteBook | Function Keys ON (often) | Yes (with driver) | Fn Key Switch | | HP ProBook | Function Keys ON | Yes | Action Keys / Fn Lock | | HP Stream / Chromebook | Action Keys ON | No (no Fn lock) | Not applicable | | Older HP (Pre-2015) | Varies | No – BIOS only | Multimedia Key / Fn Behavior | how to enable action keys on hp laptop
Be careful in BIOS. Change only the setting described. If you’ve recently purchased an HP laptop or
Now that you know the ins and outs of Action Keys versus Function Keys, you can switch between them at will and never again be frustrated when pressing F8 doesn’t mute your microphone. | BIOS Option Name | | :--- |
This is a common point of confusion for HP users. The top row of keys on most modern HP laptops are . By default, they act as Action Keys (also called hotkeys) for hardware controls. However, sometimes this setting gets reversed or disabled.