New perspectives in molecular electronics are opening up through controlled surface molecular synthesis. The first step of such a synthesis implies the adsorption of a polyfunctional molecule, which might use one functional group for the surface adsorption, and the other one(s) for further reactions. Here we present an adsorption study of Si(111)7x7 of geranyl-acetone (C13H22O, E-5,9 undecadien-one) characterized by a ketone and two unconjugated double bonds. The study has been performed by temperature and coverage dependent valence band photoemission and room temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. The use of these combined techniques allows us to infer that the interaction between the geranyl acetone and the silicon surface occurs selectively through the rest atom and the carbonyl group, most likely through the oxygen atom. The geranyl acetone does not undergo any fragmentation upon adsorption Si(111)7x7, as has been observed for smaller molecules on the same surface {acetaldehyde [Y. Bu, J. Breslin, M. C. Lin, J. Phys. Chem. B 101, 1872 (1997)] for instance}. The interaction of the chain with the surface is weak and is characterized in the STM images as a darkening of one adatom in positive bias, around the reacted rest atom. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.