osx Mavericks modify functionality of login screen

If you're using an external USB keyboard, it would be a simple matter to replace them all with a Windows keyboard.  That's the only sure fire way that works.  Unfortunately, if you have a macbook, there's still the built-in keyboard.

I though that Invert Colors was disabled by default starting from Lion or Mountain Lion.  I had to enable that by going to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Shortcuts --> Accessibility.

You can flip the keyboard functions so that they act as F1-F12 function keys by default.  They need to press fn to make changes to volume and brightness.  It won't prevent them from doing it, but they will be momentarily blocked until they figure it out.

If you only want to flip a few keys try Function Flip  http://kevingessner.com/software/functionflip/

Have you tried changing the template instead of the individual User setting /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist  If you did it manually from an logged in user account, the settings take affect system wide, so there must be another file that gets affected.

Thanks for the reply SerialBand. Yes I have put my modified com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist  in the user template, which as you mention fixes the issue for each user but not the login screen before the user logs in.