Control-Alt-Delete

[6][7] Bradley, as the chief engineer of the IBM PC project and developer of the machine's ROM-BIOS, had originally used Ctrl+Alt+Esc,[8] but found it was too easy to bump the left side of the keyboard and reboot the computer accidentally.

[12] The feature, however, was detailed in IBM's technical reference documentation[3] to the original PC and thereby revealed to the general public.

"[7] In a March 2018 email, one of Bradley's co-workers confirmed the command was invented in 1981 in Boca Raton, Florida.

[13] 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.

"; he quickly added it was a reference to Windows NT logon procedures ("Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to log on").

[14][10] 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.

In both cases, the system flushes the page cache, cleanly unmounts all disc volumes, but does not cleanly shut down any running programs (and thus does not save any unsaved documents, or the current arrangements of the objects on the Workplace Shell desktop or in any of its open folders).

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.

A QWERTY keyboard layout with the position of Control, Alt and Delete keys highlighted
Original IBM PC 5150 keyboard: It is impossible to press Ctrl+Alt+Del with one hand only
Close Program dialog box, seen in Windows 9x
The Windows Security screen in Windows 11 provides various security-related options.
Windows 11 secure attention screen
The UAC for Windows 11, where the user is required to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete first to enter credentials, as a part of avoiding login spoofing.
The result of pressing the key combination in Ubuntu v22.10
Dutch protester carrying a sign that reads "Ctrl-Alt-Del the early retirement plan"
Tilde Exclamation mark At sign Number sign Dollar sign Percent sign Caret Ampersand Asterisk Parenthesis Parenthesis Underscore Plus sign Backspace Backtick 1 (number) 2 (number) 3 (number) 4 (number) 5 (number) 6 (number) 7 (number) 8 (number) 9 (number) 0 Hyphen-minus Equals sign Backspace Tab key Q W E R T Y U I O P Curly bracket Curly bracket Vertical bar Tab key Q W E R T Y U I O P Square bracket Square bracket Backslash Caps lock A S D F G H J K L Colon (punctuation) Quotation mark Enter key Caps lock A S D F G H J K L Semicolon Apostrophe Enter key Shift key Z X C V B N M Bracket Bracket Question mark Shift key Shift key Z X C V B N M Comma (punctuation) Full stop Slash (punctuation) Shift key Control key Windows key Alt key Space bar Alt key thumb Menu key Control key