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I'm certain I'm not making this up. Quite often I'll notice something is taking longer than it should (a Visual Studio build, some unresponsive app, web page load or whatever). I'll hit crtl+shift+esc to open up Process Explorer to see what's going on. But the instant I press the keys, the hanging app starts responding and finishes what it's doing.

Normally I'd think this is coincidence, but it happens so often (and on several machines) that it's made me curious; could something be causing this behaviour? If so, perhaps I should write a program that just launches Process Explorer repeatedly to improve performance!

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  • I dunno about your specific key combination, but I know (at least sometime in the past) Ctrl-Alt-Del cleared... Something from memory. I don't remember exactly what, but if I remember correctly, that was the reason why most logins require you to hit those keys to get to the login screen... I'm not sure if it still acts the same way anymore, but when my system starts getting funky and locking up, I give it the three-fingered salute and the problem appears to go away... Whether it's placebo or not, it makes me feel better :)
    – Taegost
    Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 15:42

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This happens because pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL alerts the running applications that the user is about to kill them or their friends- They start giving resources back in hopes that the user will show mercy.

In all seriousness though, I believe this strange phenomenon is caused by an interupt in the GDI+'s paint process. Everything on your screen runs in a virtual enviroment ala Microsofts CLR & .NET framework. The GDI+ is a class in the framework that draws shapes and colors onto your screen. The resources consumed in the process depends on how much you have on your screen. If your computer is lagging and you try dragging a window around the desktop quickly it get buggy. View your performance tab in task manager while draging a video around your screen and see the performance rise and fall. When your machine is bogging down and you hit CTRL + ALT + DEL, the screen turns blue and you briefly free up resources used to paint the desktop. This brief moment can be enough to kick a stuburn process in the ass.

Note:Windows Vista+ uses DirectX primarily for most graphics, oposed to GDI+, but the concept is the same regardless of what class/framework is used.

That's the best answer I can give on this gremlin.

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  • This actually makes sense, especially since on vista/7 it brings up that screen with a few options, but its very much static
    – Simon Sheehan
    Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 16:04
  • Does the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen request any task completion or resources to stop? I ask because often in the case of performance issues you have a delay before the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen will come up. It might be that this process will cause others to close.
    – iamwpj
    Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 16:26
  • @iamwpj you are opening a can of worms that is far too vast for this one thread. I suggest you give this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt_request a quick read, as the same concept applies to your question. Like the system timer getting priority from the North bridge chipset to access the CPU, the task manager get priority over all but the most critical software operations. If a critical operation is bogging down the task manager must wait. Everything in a system is a series of wait, fetch, decode, execute.
    – Josh Campbell
    Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 16:40
  • @JoshCampbell Thanks for the answer! I don't think it's right in this case though - I'm pressing ctrl+shift+esc which is a keyboard shortcut to Task Manager, which in my case I've replaced with Process Explorer (though the same happens with Task Manager). Nothing stops drawing, in fact one more window starts drawing! Also it happens instantly - there's no noticeable wait for resources to free up. The reason I'm asking the question is that I imagine the answer involves some kind of "Windows black magic" which I don't understand.
    – Ben Hymers
    Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 8:29
  • @JoshCampbell Also, Wikipedia tells me "Software Engineer" is only a term requiring licensing in some parts of America, Canada and Australia. I'm in the UK so it's just a job title :) Though I also have a Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science which lends legitimacy to the title. I don't imagine the answer to my question involves C++ or game-related APIs.
    – Ben Hymers
    Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 8:37

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