ctrl-win-shift-b - My latest headache

[Warwick_Tech]

https://www.pugetsystems.com/support/guides/how-ctrlwinshiftb-changed-my-life/

 

So, it's now spreading around that the above command causes the screen to 'glitch' and of course if you spam it will continue to 'glitch' enough for a teacher to walk over and phone IT that the PC's are broken (hilarious)

 

I really can't find any way to block this though; it seems to be hard coded into windows and weirdly works with the letter 'L' as well which takes you to LinkedIn.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the kids spent as much effort on their work, they might make something of themselves....

[Norphy]

https://www.pugetsystems.com/support/guides/how-ctrlwinshiftb-changed-my-life/

 

So, it's now spreading around that the above command causes the screen to 'glitch' and of course if you spam it will continue to 'glitch' enough for a teacher to walk over and phone IT that the PC's are broken (hilarious)

 

I really can't find any way to block this though; it seems to be hard coded into windows and weirdly works with the letter 'L' as well which takes you to LinkedIn.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the kids spent as much effort on their work, they might make something of themselves....

 

Newer Microsoft keyboards have an Office key on them, which seems to be the equivalent of CTRL+ALT+WIN+SHIFT. Pressing it on its own brings up the MS Webpage. Pressing it with O, X, W, P or L brings up an Office app (Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint) or LinkedIn. Lord alone knows why MS decided to hardcode this into the OS rather than through an optional driver, but there you have it.

[LeMarchand]

I'm guessing the answer is "no", but can AutoHotkey or similar overwrite the mapping? If so, possibly map it to a script that locks the machine and displays a "Skiving Detected!" screen.

 

Otherwise, does this GPO work?

 

[andy_b]

Bit of a bodge, but an Autohotkey script (exe) running to intercept the combination until they get bored and move on?

 

#NoTrayIcon
#^+b::return		

[Olliedawg]

Does the GPO "Turn off Windows Hotkeys" stop this?

 

This also would affect many other useful shortcuts though.

[MrEprise]

It's a shame it's become a issue in this way as it's been quite useful when some of our users get a strange glitches or missing items in Explorer for example. Their article is slightly wrong though in that it doesn't restart the GPU driver per se, instead it restarts the Desktop Window Manager (which in turn resets the GPU in some way) so it's only been a thing since Windows Vista I believe.

[timbo343]

We disable the Windows key via a registry hack on student machines.

[Warwick_Tech]

Thanks everyone for the replies -

 

Otherwise, does this GPO work?

 

I don't have that one set it seems, but as Olliedawg says it does turn off many useful ones too...

 

Bit of a bodge, but an Autohotkey script (exe) running to intercept the combination until they get bored and move on?

 

#NoTrayIcon
#^+b::return		

 

Not sure how you even do this!

 

We disable the Windows key via a registry hack on student machines.

 

Does this break anything else? I can only imagine they need the windows key for locking (disallowed) changing display modes (they only have one screen) - Any others I'm missing?

Edited June 25, 2024 by Warwick_Tech

[Olliedawg]

Thanks everyone for the replies -

 

 

 

I don't have that one set it seems, but as Olliedawg says it does turn off many useful ones too...

 

 

 

Not sure how you even do this!

 

 

 

Does this break anything else? I can only imagine they need the windows key for locking (disallowed) changing display modes (they only have one screen) - Any others I'm missing?

You probably just need to update your ADMX to get that GPO, you could use that policy as a last resort if you don't find another solution

[LeMarchand]

I don't have that one set it seems, but as Olliedawg says it does turn off many useful ones too...

 

Do the students use a lot of them? IME most don't know what the shift key is for. As it's a user policy it can be set to only affect the students.

[jthompson]

Not sure how you even do this!

 

I may not be remembering this exactly right, but you can do this by placing the AutoHotKey executable (it's a portable exe) into a suitable network location, with a .ahk script file alongside it. Then use group Policy to set a user logon script that runs the AutoHotKey exe with the script as a parameter.

 

An example script is here - https://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/205602-disable-taskview-multiple-desktops.html#post1771391

In that case, I was interception Win+Ctrl+D, Win+Tab and Win+Ctrl+left/right to prevent students from abusing the multiple desktops feature. You can adapt that to intercept Win+Ctrl+Shift+B instead (#^+D in AutoHotKey parlance).

[timbo343]

 

Does this break anything else? I can only imagine they need the windows key for locking (disallowed) changing display modes (they only have one screen) - Any others I'm missing?

 

Anything that uses the Windows key. We only push this out to student machines as i'm sure there was some kind of Safe Mode Boot which required the windows key to be pressed with other keys.

 

We don't allow the kids to lock their machines so Windows Key + L isn't available anyway.

 

We've not had any complaints and we've had Windows Key disabled on student machines since deploying Windows 10 way back when.

[andy_b]

 

Not sure how you even do this!

 

 

As mentioned above, download Autohotkey (https://www.autohotkey.com/)

 

Use the compile function from the "Autohotkey Dash" to compile the script below (saved as XX.ahk) as an exe.

 

#SingleInstance
#NoTrayIcon
#^+b::return

 

Then deploy the exe as a startup file via GPO. Remove once they forget about it. It should be self contained and no longer need the ahk file.

[DavonPotter]

That shortcut does sound like it's causing some unexpected chaos. It's interesting how these things spread among students! Blocking it might be tricky since it's a system-level command. Maybe some classroom management software could help limit keyboard shortcuts? Good luck keeping the IT calls to a minimum!