The Windows Process Journey — osk.exe (Accessibility On-Screen Keyboard)

“osk.exe” is the “Accessibility On-Screen Keyboard” which presents a virtual keyboard layout inside a resizable window — as shown in the screenshot below. The virtual keyboards enable the user clicking/hovering/scanning using a mouse/joystick in order to select/activate keys (https://www.file.net/process/osk.exe.html).

Moreover, “osk.exe” has a 101/102/106 key layout. “osk.exe” is a PE binary located at “%windir%\System32\osk.exe”. It is bundled with Windows and can provide some features for users with limited mobility (https://www.processlibrary.com/en/directory/files/osk/21965/).

Thus, we don’t need a touch screen in order to interact with “osk.exe” (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-the-on-screen-keyboard-osk-to-type-ecbb5e08-5b4e-d8c8-f794-81dbf896267a). By the way, “osk.exe” is not the only virtual keyboard available as part of Windows, there is also “TabTip.exe” — but more on there is a separate writeup.

Lastly, in case you want to see a reference implementation of “osk.exe” I suggest going over the implementation which is part of ReactOS (https://github.com/reactos/reactos/tree/47f3a4e144b897da0e0e8cb08c2909645061dec9/base/applications/osk).

See you next time ;-) You can also follow me on twitter — @boutnaru (https://twitter.com/boutnaru).