The feature was originally conceived only as a development feature for internal use and not intended to be used by end users, as it triggered the reboot without warning or further confirmation—it was meant to be used by people writing programs or documentation so that they could reboot their computers without powering them down. Bill Gates (former Microsoft CEO) remembered it as "just something we were using in development and it wouldn't be available elsewhere". The feature, however, was detailed in IBM's technical reference documentation to the original PC and thereby revealed to the general public.
Bradley viewed this work as just one small task out of many: "It was five minutes, 10 minutes of activity, and then I moved on to the next of the 100 things that needed to get done." In a March 2018 email, one of Bradley's co-workers confirmed the command was invented in 1981 in Boca Raton, Florida.
Bradley is also known for his good-natured jab at Gates at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC on August 8, 2001 at The Tech Museum:
"I have to share the credit. I may have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous."; he quickly added it was a reference to Windows NT logon procedures ("Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to log on").
During a question and answer presentation on 21 September 2013, Gates said "it was a mistake", referring to the decision to use Ctrl+Alt+Del as the keyboard combination to log into Windows. Gates stated he would have preferred a single button to trigger the same actions, but could not get IBM to add the extra button into the keyboard layout.
If LocalReboot=Off, Windows performs a soft reboot.
The keystrokes are well known and infamous for escaping from problems in pop culture. For example, in the Billy Talent song "Perfect World", part of the lyrics include the sequence and associate it with resetting their memory and escaping from a situation: "Control-Alt-Deleted. Reset my memory."
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Andrei Miroshnikov (2018). Windows Security Monitoring: Scenarios and Patterns. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1119390879. Winlogon is a system component 978-1119390879
When a Windows computer is locked, access to Windows is only allowed when valid credentials are supplied. Unlocking a computer is similar to a logon. /wiki/Login
The only way to wrest the control of Ctrl+Alt+Delete handling from Windows is to subvert its core components such as kernel or winlogon. However, a malicious program that has succeeded in breaching Windows integrity so deeply does not need to steal a password. /wiki/Winlogon
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Paul, Matthias R.; Frinke, Axel C. (1997-10-13) [first published 1991], FreeKEYB - Enhanced DOS keyboard and console driver (User Manual) (v6.5 ed.) [1] (NB. FreeKEYB is a Unicode-based dynamically configurable successor of K3PLUS supporting most keyboard layouts, code pages, and country codes.) https://web.archive.org/web/20190309194320/http://sta.c64.org/dosprg/fk657p1.zip
Paul, Matthias R.; Frinke, Axel C. (2006-01-16), FreeKEYB - Advanced international DOS keyboard and console driver (User Manual) (v7 preliminary (v6.58) ed.)
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"Mac keyboard shortcuts". Apple, Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-25. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
"Mac keyboard shortcuts". Apple, Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-25. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
"Mac keyboard shortcuts". Apple, Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-25. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
"Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier: Computer stops responding". Apple, Inc. Archived from the original on 2008-10-16. Retrieved 2008-10-25. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2298
"Mac keyboard shortcuts". Apple, Inc. Archived from the original on 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-25. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
"The Haiku/BeOS Tip Server: Kill and restart the Tracker". Archived from the original on 2017-02-05. Retrieved 2019-08-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20170205165257/http://betips.net/1997/09/09/kill-and-restart-the-tracker/
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Wordspy Archived 2007-11-15 at the Wayback Machine cites the earliest such use as Chris Miksanek's 18 December 1995 Computerworld column titled, "Ctrl-Alt-Delete those holiday trinkets". http://www.wordspy.com/words/Ctrl-Alt-Delete.asp
"Billy Talent – 'Perfect World' Lyrics". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2011-07-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234345/http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/perfect-world-lyrics-billy-talent/75d092b0796b50cd4825717b000dfea0