Ctrl Alt F8 disconnects displays?

Learning debugging in PhpStorm and keep accidentally hitting Ctrl + Alt + F8. I use 3 displays this disconnects the two remotes and goes back to just the laptop.

I cannot see this documented anywhere (running Win 10).

The worst part is that hitting the combination again does NOT reconnect the displays.

Anyone know either:

• combination to reverse the effect - IE reconnect displays

• how I can stop it or

• a tool that will help me find out where it is firing from (motherboard/Windows/Intel/nVidia/USB monitor driver - goodness knows where).

Grateful for a helping hand. F8 in various combinations are the debugging shortcuts for PhpStorm and I keep hitting Ctrl + Alt + F8 accidentally. I am about to throw a monitor out of the window.

EDIT Apologies. When I posted this it said Ctrl + Shift + F8 in error. Hope did not confuse anyone.

Oops misremembered my own post!.

What causes this is additional software that comes with the Intel Graphics chip. This software monitors for the Ctrl + Alt + F8 shortcut and then resets the display settings to a default value.

While the "Intel HD Graphics Control Panel" setup utility allows configuring keyboard shortcuts for other tasks, it does specifically say that you cannot change or disable the shortcut for the "reset settings" task.

The only way to disable this is by disabling the Windows Service installed by the Intel Software.

1. Go to Windows Services list

2. Find the "Intel(R) HD Graphics Control Panel" service.

3. Disable it (open its properties, stop it AND make sure to set its startup type to "Disabled")

4. You may need to reboot the computer once.

---

Note that this answer was written in 2016. Newer versions of the Intel Graphics software have options to disable the hotkey without having to disable the service. See the comments of this answer on superuser

Just stumbled across this now. In the hope it helps someone else, and in addition to the accepted answer, here is how to re-connect your 'disconnected' display(s) in Windows 10:

Right Click on the desktop and select display settings:

.

Click on the icon for your disconnected display:

.

Scroll down, down, down and select Extend / Duplicate form list:

This is about reconnecting.

If it happens just hit WindowsKey+ P, and select again your screen settings.

If you don't have Administrator access to your computer, you can do what I do:

I use AutoHotKey to define lots of useful function keys. You can easily redefine Ctrl+Alt+F8 to bypass the Intel HD driver with this one-line .ahk text file:

^!f8::msgbox, You hit Ctrl+Alt+F8

If you'd rather just ignore the keystroke:

^!f8::return

While this prevents the Intel driver from seeing that key combination, it prevents all other programs you may be running from seeing it, too. That can also be fixed. For example, if you know that in application "myapp" that keystroke is the same as a series of clicks in the menu, say Alt+E, F, G, you can emulate those clicks just inside that application:

#ifwinactive,myapp
^!f8::send,!efg
#ifwinnotactive,myapp
^!f8::msgbox, You hit Ctrl+Alt+F8

Something else to try in order to return to some sort of working order quickly...

If your using windows 7 or newer, you can always try getting your screens back by pressing the window key (on the keyboard-bottom left) and the P key at the same time. This will bring up options normally as to how you want your screen to be projected (single, dual, or extended displays). If you tried Win + P and still cannot see anything, try pressing the down arrow on the keyboard. This should bring the display back to normal mode(s).

This is on ubuntu 18.04 press on

Ctrl+Alt+F1

Problem with the Dockingstation (in my case)

I had the same problem and reset the settings with Ctrl + Alt + F8.

• For me even the restart did not help
• The 2nd screen was not even recognized

But my screens are on a docking station because I have an on / off switch. Once off and on again and then it went again.

So users with docking station, should first try to turn the devices on and off.