Trying to play this game on a laptop. I fixed my graphics issues, but the laptop doesn't have a numpad. You need numpad + or - to zoom in and out. Is there a way to fix that?

Usually you have a blue Fn key next to the left Ctrl on your laptop's keyboard.
Press this Fn key and / to zoom in, press Fn + ; to zoom out and Fn + P to reset the zoom.

No luck. I know most laptops without a numpad have alt keys labeled that do the numpad functions. Mine doesn't have that. Fn P just pauses the game, same as pushing P normally. Fn + and Fn / don't do anything.

Is there any other way to use the zoom?

What game(s) of the Commandos series are you playing? I found a solution for Commandos BEL so far. And what's your laptop model?

It's Behind Enemy Lines. I'm using an HP Envy 14 inch with no numpad. Unlike some other laptops I've had, the 14 inch Envy model doesn't have alternate numpad keys superimposed over the regular keys. So I don't think hitting function will work. I either need an alternate key binding, a hack, or some way to to modify my key inputs.

Try this:
Open Comandos.exe with a hex-editor (and don't forget to make a backup of the untouched .exe!)
Search for these hex-values: C7 44 24 6C 6B 00 00 00
Now replace the byte 6B (= Numpad +) with another keycode (for example 79, which is the keycode for F10)
Then search for C7 44 24 74 6D 00 00 00 (= Numpad -, replace 6D) and finally search for C7 84 24 8C 00 00 00 6A 00 00 00 (= Numpad *, replace 6A).

Here you can find a list of all keycodes: http://www.kbdedit.com/manual/low_level_vk_list.html
I replaced 6B,6D,6A with 79,7A,7B (=F10,F11,F12), but you can choose any other keycodes if you like.

That did it. Rather brilliant. I set Zoom In to PgUp, Zoom Out to PgDown, and Reset to Home.

Looks like Commandos 2 and 3 have the same issue. Any way to do a similar fix?

Tried to fix the zoom keys in C2 the same way as in CBEL, but the new key assignment didn't work :(

As I found only this post relevant to my problem, there is a solution for probably every Commandos, hope some future googler will find it:

1. Download and install AutoHotKey
2. Create a file commandos.ahk with the following content:
=::NumPadAdd
-::NumPadSub
\::NumPadMult

3. Double click/"run" the file (if no longer needed, right click on its tray icon and exit)

After this, - will be zoom out, = will be zoom in (so no shift needed), and \ will zoom to default.


Edit: using mouse wheel would be the best, but this doesn't work as expected for me (game does not stop zooming):
WheelUp::NumPadAdd
WheelDown::NumPadSub
MButton::NumPadMult

Aside from being a little finicky if your wheel is so sensitive it will occasionally produce the opposite direction(increasing SetMouseDelay might help here-that number is in milliseconds) This works! (I used AHK2EXE to turn it into an executable that I ran in wine as a way to launch both the script and BEL.

Note that it won't be as smooth as using the keyboard but it should work fine. And middle mouse button will instantly zoom out if you don't want to wait for the slow jerky motion of zooming back out with the wheel.

Of Course you can edit the executable in the first line(Or Take it out depending on whatever app you are running) If you change the script and use ahk2exe you must rerun it every time to convert the changes. If you don't edit out the first line, the script/exe must be run in the game folder.

;///////////////////////////////

run "Comandos.exe"

SetMouseDelay, 150

WheelUp::
BlockInput On
Loop, 3
{
Send {NumpadAdd Down}
Sleep, 20 ; most games work with a key down between 20-50ms.
Send {NumpadAdd Up}
}
SendInput {WheelUp Up}
BlockInput Off
return

WheelDown::
BlockInput On
Loop, 3
{
Send {NumpadSub Down}
Sleep, 20 ; most games work with a key down between 20-50ms.
Send {NumpadSub Up}
}
SendInput {WheelDown Up}
BlockInput Off
return

MButton::NumpadMult
return

;//////////////////////////////////