Windows went black and white

margrave55 · 31 Dec 2017

I was using my wife's laptop tonight ... and suddenly the screen went black-and-white.

Oh crap! If I can't fix this before she wakes up there will be a colossal New Year's Eve screaming match!

A quick web search revealed that pressing ctrl-windows-c puts the screen in "filtered" mode, apparently as an assist for for visually impaired people. I must have fat-fingered a ctrl combination accidentally, triggering this mode. Re-tapping ctrl-windows-c fixed it. Full color anew.

Is this "filter" something new in the latest update of Windows 10? I've not seen it before. (Or perhaps it's because none of my previous fat-fingering invoked this peculiar key sequence?)

Anyway, I just thought I'd point it out in case anyone else runs into this.

BTW, we don't need this "feature". I'd like to know whether it can be disabled. I've not yet found a way to do so.

dalchina · 31 Dec 2017

Hi, just to expand that- as I don't immediately see a way to turn that off- here are some references to that:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-color-filters

You might like to experiment (carefully) with this:
Removing Ease of Access from Lock Screen? : Windows10

or try redefining the hotkey combo with e.g. Autohotkey (expect it would be a 1-line script)

Brink · 31 Dec 2017

Hello margrave, :)

Yep, you turned on Color Filters with the Win+Ctrl+C toggle key combination.

Turn On or Off Color Filters to the Screen in Windows 10 Customization Tutorials

margrave55 · 01 Jan 2018

That's it!

dalchina said:

Try redefining the hotkey combo with e.g. Autohotkey (expect it would be a 1-line script)

I simply added this to the Autohotkey script:

Code:

; DISABLE CTRL-WINDOWS-C (WHICH INVOKES THE "COLOR FILTERS")
^#c::
return

Thanks.

dalchina · 01 Jan 2018