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I have absolutely no idea what is causing this.

I have a Windows 7 Professional box, and sometimes (I don't know under which circumstances), hitting ctrl-c (for example, to copy something into the clipboard) initiates an immediate system shutdown. All running applications immediately close (even faster than if I had started a shutdown from the start menu), and the system shuts down.

I've been able to abort this with some apps like PuTTY that refuse to close unless I confirm that I do want to close them. Hitting "no" successfully aborts the system shutdown, but not before having closed a dozen or more other applications I was working on.

I suppose this is not default behavior (although I'm not sure if this happens when the desktop is the focused window). I have checked for viruses with an up-to-date antivirus, and same for spyware. I am an IT professional, so I think I know what I'm doing.

Maybe this is being caused by some software. Does anybody know of any software that does this so I can at least find the culprit?

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  • There are programs that could do this but I wonder if someone has set up a prank, because it seems unlikely this could happen by accident. You need to give us more information about what programs are running on your computer. I would suggest following these instructions explaining how to use the command line to generate a text file you can post: windowsxp.mvps.org/listproc.htm. Note that unless you run the command prompt as administrator their example will fail as it is trying to write to the C:\ root directory. You could just specify a different path.
    – James P
    Sep 27, 2011 at 12:37
  • Another thing: does your keyboard have any special features, e.g. a power off button, programmable keys?
    – James P
    Sep 27, 2011 at 12:47
  • It might be worth checking the Event Log to see if mentions what triggered the shutdown.
    – Dracs
    Mar 25, 2013 at 1:24

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I ran into a problem like this today.

I'm not exactly certain of the cause, or even if it's related to the problem that the original poster was referring to in 2011.

My problem was caused by a WinSplitRevolution shortcut and possibly Virtualbox in seamless mode. WinSplitRevolution has a shortcut mapped for ctrl+alt+c to close all windows. This also seems to prompt a shutdown if on the desktop. Disable this shortcut to fix the problem.

Intermittently, this shortcut would be triggered when pressing only ctrl+c. Something in my system was holding the alt key. I feel like it has something to do with Virtualbox as it only happens when switching in and out of seamless windows. But as I've disabled the winsplitshortcut, I'm not interested in testing this any further.

Props to this blog: http://spekxvision.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/ctrl-alt-c-trying-to-shutdown-windows-7/

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  • Was also caused by Winsplit for me. Well done.
    – Lews Therin
    Mar 17, 2016 at 11:19

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