BF2S Forums Help with changing button config?

The button-config windows in BF2 are seriously boned, lots of people have trouble when mapping keys getting a message that something is already in use, even when you can see it's not. When this happens you can blank out all of the bindings in every single window to start from scratch and still get the message so it's total BS. This may be related to this.

If it is then the only solution is to manually edit the Controls.con file (in My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles, there are numbered folders inside that directory, your friend's should be in 0001 if he's just registered as a new player).

There are some prior threads here on how to do this which I recommend he have a look before he starts. I'd recommend making a backup of the existing document before you start in case you make a mistake, although you can delete the file, go into BF2 and it'll create a new one.