Microsoft Remote Keyboard Attempts

I recently bought the new Microsoft Remote Keyboard (IR) and i am trying to 
get it to work with LIRC(0.8.0).  I have done just about everything I could 
find to get this working and I think it is time to ask for some help.  

First off, if you don't know what I am talking about, it looks like this:
http://images.tomshardware.com/2005/08/15/microsoft_mce_keyboard/ms_keyboard_mce_1.jpg

The keyboard is designed to work with the MCE IR receiver, in windows of 
course.  Out of the box, some of the buttons work on this keyboard when using 
mceusb2 driver and lircd.conf.mceusb.  The buttons on the left and right hand 
side work exactly like the keys on the MCE remote.  Not too surprising since 
they are the same buttons as on the remote.  

However, everything else doesn't, i.e. letters, numbers, ctrl, shift, F1..etc.  
We won't even go into the built in mouse.  That is for another day.

Here is a list of things I have tried.  I have logs of much of this stuff, 
including logs from lircd.  Sorry for the length, but I wanted to be 
thorough.

------------------------------

First off, I compiled and ran lircd in debug mode to get some extra output
  lircd -D5

-------------------------------

Then tried filling in the empty ranges in the lircd.conf.mceusb and ran irw to 
see if anything came up for the missing keys.  Maybe it is just this 
easy?.....Nope.

-------------------------------

Then I tried looking at the lircd log when in debug mode (lircd -D5), using 
the original lircd.conf.mceusb.  I ran irw and hit the 'A' key twice on the 
keyboard.  I also ran mode2 for hitting the A key twice.  These logs don't 
mean anything to me, but if someone more knowledgable would like to take a 
look I can send them.

-------------------------------

Tried running irrecord to append the original lirc.conf.mceusb file (irrecord 
lircd.conf.mceusb).  irrecord gets stuck looking for the toggle bit when I do 
this.

    Please press an arbitrary button repeatedly as fast as 
    possible (don't hold it down!).

    No toggle bit found.
    But I know for sure that RC6 has a toggle bit.
  
So I tried again, this time with (irrecord -F lircd.conf), it gets past the 
toggle bit, but outputs:

    Invalid toggle bit.
    min_repeat=1  

It continues and starts asking to hit keys to record.  When I hit the A key on 
the keyboard, I get a lot of output since debug mode is enabled, but the 
result is:

    Something went wrong.
    Please try again. (9 retries left)

--------------------------------

My final attempt was to make an entirely new .conf file. (irrecord 
keyboard.conf).  This time everything seemed to go smoothly, and i got a new 
conf file.  But when I used it with lircd and irw, I get nothing.  

-------------------------------

So does anyone have any ideas to try next?  I am complete newbie to lirc, but 
do have programming experience, so any pointers would be greatly appreciated.


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