What does CTRL+WIN+SHIFT+B do in Windows?

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Solution 1

The Ctrl+Shift+Win+B key sequence will restart your graphics driver.

Solution 2

Official from Microsoft: "Windows logo key + Ctrl + Shift + B = Wake PC from blank or black screen"

From a discussion with an AMD Radeon driver engineer, it does NOT restart the graphics driver. It does appear to discard the desktop surface buffer and re-create the allocation from DWM (on a healthy system the desktop goes black for a second).

Solution 3

Have only found this one, please take a look:

Ctrl+Win+B -> Switch to the program that displayed a message in the notification area.

316,244

onelove567

Twitter: @clupasq Github: clupasq

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

onelove567 almost 2 years

I'm using Windows 10 and today I accidentally hit the key combination: Ctrl+Shift+Win+B.

As a result, the screens went black for about a second and I heard a beep.

This is reproduceable; every time I hit the aforementioned key combination, the same behavior occurs.

Searching on the web I could find nothing about this except a reddit thread in which a user said he observed a similar behavior in Windows 8 by pressing Ctrl+Win+B (no Shift).

So, what is this key combination used for?
- phuclv about 6 years
  
  Interesting shortcut on Windows: Windows+Ctrl+Shift+B. It's also suggested by MS to recover from the Chrome freezing bug
- Appleshell almost 5 years
  
  "This keycombo actually saves out part of the dispdiag circular log and queues up the data to upload through telemetry indicating the customer had a black screen."
- aviator over 3 years
  
  Wow, I've never heard of this shortcut, and I thought I was aware of nearly all. Is there any list available of secret, potentially useful tricks (i.e. keyboard shortcuts) like these?
onelove567 almost 8 years

Yes, I ran into that while searching. I even use Win+B occasionally (although not with the CTRL version). However, if I add shift on top of that I get the totally weird behavior I described in the question.
onelove567 over 7 years

I think that's it. After seeing your answer I found this: betanews.com/2016/11/14/how-to-restart-graphics-driver which confirms it.
Brian Knoblauch almost 7 years

If you have a Surface like I do, you probably also get to use this key combo every time you want to wake the machine from sleep... If you don't do this, the monitors refuse to come back on!
bgmCoder about 6 years

@GolfWolf ah - it says the key combo only works on Win 10. I confirm that on Win7 Pro it doesn't do anything.
fritzmg over 5 years

Can this be done with a console command too?
Rubellite Fae almost 5 years

While not the best answer, spreading this handy tip is still useful. +1
Kevin over 4 years

From a discussion with an AMD Radeon driver engineer, it does NOT restart the graphics driver. It does appear to discard the desktop surface buffer and re-create the allocation from DWM (on a healthy system the desktop goes black for a second).
RyanQuey about 3 years

For what it's worth, Microsoft also recommends using it in this situation: when troubleshooting external monitor setup, when external monitor was working before but then suddenly stopped. support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/…
Polynomial almost 3 years

Kevin's comment is correct. This key combo causes the Desktop Window Manager to recreate its graphics context and surface.
Admin almost 2 years

Why is there a shortcut for this? What's its common purpose?