I’m love my Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard it’s comfortable to use and I’m much faster and more accurate then using a regular flat keyboard. While I like some of the ‘extra features’ that the Microsoft Office keyboards have, like the volume control and handy shortcut buttons, I utterly loathe this F Lock thing!
Every single function that is mapped as an alternate F key setting has a keyboard shortcut already, which I know and use. But my main frustration is that by default the setting is that the F keys don’t do F key stuff 😡
However there is relief if you, like me, hate having to remember to toggle the setting every morning when you boot up. Jason Tsang has a fix which changes some registry settings to flip the meaning of the F Lock key: http://jtsang.mvps.org/scancode_method.html