Bill Gates has stated that they may have only had one button, but who designed the IBM-PC keyboard he didn’t want it. This was nothing less than David Bradley, one of the 12 developers of what would become a standard in current computing, at that time chief engineer of the IBM computer project. He himself developed the ROM or BIOS. It was in the year 1981 when he created the famous shortcut for reboot quickly. Back then there was no physical reset button. It is not until 90’s in which it begins to be seen and popularized in IBM.
Initially, the idea was use the keys Ctrl Alt Esc, although these are relatively close and these alternatives were proposed to avoid pressing by accident. At least that’s what he thought at the time. The chosen one was Ctrl Alt Delete. In addition, this was implemented by the programmers of internal way and it was not intended for the general public to access it. David Bradley declared in this regard that the keyboard was part of a long process and there was no time to waste it on small details such as the dedicated key proposed by Bill Gates.
Currently, this key combination is a excellent solution when a application hangs or the operating system does not finish an action or task when it is not possible to do it in another way.
How to use it and what it is for
Using it is as simple as pressing three keys at once, and not one after another. You must have them all pressed at the moment for it to work. The keys are Control, Alt and Delete. The first ones are in the lower left part of the keyboard and the other in the upper right part, so you will have to use both hands for this.
This popular key combination is available for different operating systems and has different kinds of functions based on the process that is being done. On Login You can enter a username and password. Yes you are at the desk you will be able to lock, switch users, log out and start the task manager. You can also have options for WiFi, accessibility, and shutdown, sleep, and restart your computer. Also, you can change the password.
It is usually used when the system is blocked or we want to close some program that does not respond, so that the rest of the processes work correctly or later to be able to open it correctly. You can do this with the task manager. Also, in MS-DOS and some older Linux we will access to BIOS of the team.
What can you do on Windows?
We have already told you about the main functions that you can access from this Windows shortcut, so we will tell you what they are and what they are for.
To block
The first thing you can do is lock the computer, something that may interest you if you are doing something on the computer and want to let it work, as is the case if you are downloading or installing something that takes a long time, but you do not want it to work. no other person access it while you’re away You will hit block and no one but you will be able to see what you are doing or touch the computer. This will be saved with the information open, the energy consumption reduced and without anyone else being able to do anything until you decide.
Change user
If there is more than one user on the computer or you share it and you want to leave the computer for someone else to access, you can change user at any time with this shortcut. It can also be interesting if it’s the children’s or a guest’s turn to use the computer and you don’t want them to do so from your session, being able to switch to another or a guest session.
You will not have to close your account to be able to access another one using this option. This is interesting if you want to have information that is in another account, for example.
Sign off
If what you want is completely close the session because you are not interested in having it open and preventing another person from accessing it when they need to enter their profile, you can use this option. A) Yes, you will avoid having to turn off the computer to close your session so that another person can enter theirs.
It is a very similar function to the previous one, only that in the previous one you do not close the session, but it remains open and you could switch to it comfortably.
Change Password
If you are in your account and want to change the password because you have realized that someone else has seen it, discovered it, for safety or because you have not changed it for a long time, you will only have to click on this option and it will take you to where you can make this change.
This is interesting when you have an account with a password, and not open, for security, and it is time to make this change.
Task Manager
From this shortcut you can access the task manager when a program has been blocked, does not work correctly, you want to close it or you see that the computer does not work correctly. One will open window with all open programs and you can close the one you want with a click. Also, you will see the consumption of each one of them and you will even be able to see if there is one that you think you have not opened or do not know.
It is the best alternative to close blocked or unresponsive programs after a few minutes, since to do it with one that already works it is neither necessary nor recommended to do it this way. Thus, we can make the computer work better.
Other uses
If it runs before the operating system can intercept it, will restart the computer. You can also do this when it’s frozen. That is why it can be used in situations such as Power On Self Test or POST. In Windows 3.x and 9x, if you hit it quickly and twice it will start rebooting without shutting down safely. On some versions of Windows, such as XP, Vista, and 7, it can be used to access user accounts through the protection or safe care sequence.
Some operating systems based on linux, like Debian and Ubuntu, use it to Sign off. It can also be used to reboot an Ubuntu server without having to log out. In Xface it locks the screen and starts the saver.
With some remote desktop applications, you can send it to another computer with the option in the menu, as well as other virtual desktop apps and programs.
However, it should be noted that macOS does not use it, but uses Command + Option + Esc to execute the forced closing menu, or others depending on what you want to do. If you try this combination it won’t work.
Why does it sometimes not work?
It may have stopped working for you and you don’t know why. First of all, you have to check that the keyboard is not faulty or what, if not any of the keys that it does not work, or does not do it correctly. Try each of them separately to see if they work. See if any of them have no garbage inside and try to clean them. Make sure you are using the correct key combination and at the same time
You can update drivers of the keyboard. You can also try connecting another keyboard to see if the issue is hardware related. If this works, one cause of the error may be some third party software installed on the computer that changed the registry value. So if you’ve installed a new app, try uninstall it and see if that works.
It may also be that this has changed the default keyboard settings, so the best thing in this case is to reset the default settings to see if it goes. To do this, you can go to the language settings and change it to another one and then put it back to the previous one. This will reset the keyboard settings.
It is also good that you use the antivirus or security system of your team to find out if there are any malware which causes it to not work.
Another option is, if it has failed you recently, to recover the last restore point to see if that’s the case. You can also do a clean boot, see if it works and install third-party applications to see if any cause an error. With any of these options it should already work correctly.