I probably spent way too much time on this today than I should have, but, anyway, long story short: I bought a Mac mini a few weeks ago with a matching wired Apple keyboard. So I figured I could hook up my Windows 8.1 lappie to the same setup, with some slight issue the keyboard when plugged in does nothing - connecting a monitor and mouse were no problem at all. Hell, it didn't even recognize the damn thing and it didn't matter into which of the four USB ports (all work otherwise) I plugged it: no notification pop-up, no listing in the device box, nada!

So I trawled the net for several hours without avail. I've tried numerous 'driver' tricks, and I even changed some of the UEFI settings to see whether that would change anything, but the lappie acts like the keyboard simply doesn't exist. Eventually, I just threw my hands up in the air and decided to take a break because this shit just became a wee bit frustrating. When I did decide to plug it into my old backup laptop for the hell of it Windows 7 recognized it immediately and installed the driver software for it without me having to do a single thing.

It just completely baffles me why absolutely nothing happens when I try it with my other lappie. I mean it can't be a hardware problem since it clearly works with the Mac mini and the older Windows laptop, or can it? I'm really quite confused and puzzled about all this. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated before I do a whole fresh reinstall on the damn thing in hopes that that may do something, but, frankly, I'm not so sure it would. =/

Have you tried other ports?

Silly question, but going by the non-apple keyboards I've used every now and then, you did try typing with it in a notepad, right?
From what I recall, the only indication Windows give is that it has an HID compliant device plugged in, which only shows in Device Manager. No pop-up, no listing etc. You may find it in the "Devices and Printers", but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Oh yeah, I've gone through the device manager extensively, and it never listed it. I've tried searching for it by adding a new device in the control panel and all Windows told me is that there weren't any new devices. It's just so weird, man.

I assume you're using the wired Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad, right?

What could try doing is installing the Windows drivers for the wired keyboard that come with Boot Camp; the installers are for Windows 7, however... http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/45140-apple-keyboard-driver-for-windows/page-4#entry1498200

...and could this possibly help? http://www.overclock.net/t/1231886/guide-using-the-apple-wired-keyboard-in-windows-7

Yup, that's the one. I also already tried installing the drivers that came in the bootcamp package... without any damn luck. Thing is, by all accounts everybody seems to be saying the keyboard should be recognized as a device in some fashion before I even get to that point. As I mentioned in the first post, my old Win 7 lappie had no problem with it; it even got listed as Apple keyboard in the devices menu. Yet when it comes to my newer Win 8.1 lappie absolutely nothing happens. It really is one of the oddest things I've ever seen happening with a computer, especially since all my other USB devices get picked up just fine with that very same laptop.

I'm honestly at a loss. At least the Apple wired keyboard is a USB HID compliant-device (not sure about the wireless keyboard or the Magic Keyboard), and should be picked up as an ordinary USB keyboard, minus the custom F-key functionality.

I did a little more Googling and found these:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2830154
https://deploymentramblings.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/keyboard-stops-working-on-windows-8-1-system/

Could these be of use to you?

Apparently not. Tried the first link where both files are 'not compatible' with my computer. For the second, everything's off there as well. *shrug*

It really is a head-scratcher, no doubt about it.

Unfortunately, I do not have one on hand or I would have tried to check on that already. I guess that's my last resort then, since a fresh reinstall didn't do a damn thing either. I'm thinking of swinging by a Best Buy that isn't too far off and asking them if I was able to try out one of their demo units they have with my lappie because I'm sure as hell not blindly buying another keyboard just to find out it won't work either.

SOLVED! ;) Well, so I did go downtown today because I had other things to do there and I swung by the Microsoft store - which funnily but not surprisingly almost always looks dead in comparison to Apple's place two blocks away - and an employee allowed me to test my laptop with their keyboards there, and it had no problem working with either wireless or wired versions. Go figure.

Unfortunate for them, the only models they actually sold there (that weren't display models) were few. I was actually quite surprised at their slim and frankly crappy selection, but luckily for me I knew there was an Office Depot a few blocks from there which funnily enough had a much better variety, even when it came to MS keyboards. I just ended up picking up an inexpensive basic one from Logitech, which works just fine with both the lappie and the Mac mini.

Yay! I'm glad everything worked out for you. Weird that the MS Store didn't seem to actually have anything to sell you, but that's retail for you...