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

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?

Cristian Lupascu

Posted 2016-09-23T09:06:36.283

Reputation: 1 693

Interesting shortcut on Windows: Windows+Ctrl+Shift+B. It's also suggested by MS to recover from the Chrome freezing bug – phuclv – 2018-05-05T08:09:27.947

1"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." – Appleshell – 2019-07-25T14:53:45.317

Answers

This key sequence actually restarts you graphics driver.

TechRon

Posted 2016-09-23T09:06:36.283

Reputation: 854

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

– Cristian Lupascu – 2016-11-14T12:54:18.203

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! – Brian Knoblauch – 2017-08-28T18:30:58.447

@GolfWolf ah - it says the key combo only works on Win 10. I confirm that on Win7 Pro it doesn't do anything. – bgmCoder – 2018-05-04T18:57:24.367

Can this be done with a console command too? – fritzmg – 2019-02-14T11:42:34.893

1From 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). – kevinf – 2019-12-05T01:31:33.700

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).

kevinf

Posted 2016-09-23T09:06:36.283

Reputation: 524

Have only found this one, please take a look:

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

duDE

Posted 2016-09-23T09:06:36.283

Reputation: 14 097

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. – Cristian Lupascu – 2016-09-23T09:31:45.953

2While not the best answer, spreading this handy tip is still useful. +1 – Rubellite Fae – 2019-08-09T02:24:42.953