How to send Ctrl+Alt+Del in a remote desktop session

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   Step 1: Click inside the Remote Desktop window

   The remote screen needs the keyboard, so click somewhere harmless on it first, like an empty part of the desktop.

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   Step 2: Press Ctrl+Alt+End

   Hold Ctrl and Alt and press End. Remote Desktop Connection turns that into Ctrl+Alt+Del on the remote PC, in a window or in full screen.

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   Step 3: Choose what you need

   The remote PC shows its security screen: Lock, Sign out, Change a password and Task Manager. Click Cancel or press Esc to go back to the desktop.

Be careful with Sign out: it closes your apps on the remote PC. Lock leaves them running, but you'll have to sign in again to carry on.

On Windows 11 and 10, Ctrl+Alt+Del opens the security options screen, which takes over the whole display. From there you can:

• Lock the PC, so it needs your password or PIN to get back in.
• Switch user, to let someone else sign in while your apps stay open.
• Sign out, which closes your apps.
• Change a password for the account you're signed in with.
• Open Task Manager, to see what's running and end a program that's stuck.

The icons in the corner add network, accessibility and power options (shut down, restart, sleep). On PCs set up to require it, Ctrl+Alt+Del is also what you press at the lock screen before you sign in. In a Remote Desktop session the same screen appears, though some choices, like Switch user, may be missing.

Ctrl+Alt+Del is the secure attention sequence. Windows handles it before any app sees a key, so that a fake sign-in screen can never catch it. That's what makes it safe, and it's also why your own PC always answers it: Remote Desktop Connection never gets the chance to pass it on. Ctrl+Alt+End is the stand-in it listens for instead.

Many laptops put End on another key, reached with Fn, so try Ctrl+Alt+Fn and the key marked End. If that doesn't work, the On-Screen Keyboard built into Windows has every key:

• On your own PC, click Start, type On-Screen Keyboard and open it. You can also run osk.
• Click inside the Remote Desktop window, so it has the focus.
• On the on-screen keyboard, click Ctrl, then Alt, then End.

The on-screen keyboard types into whichever window has the focus without taking it, so Remote Desktop Connection receives Ctrl+Alt+End as if you'd pressed it.

If you connect to one PC and then, from it, to a second one, Ctrl+Alt+End only reaches the first: your own Remote Desktop Connection takes it and sends Ctrl+Alt+Del there. To reach the second PC, send Ctrl+Alt+End from the PC one level up:

• In the first remote session, click Start, type On-Screen Keyboard and open it there.
• Click inside the inner Remote Desktop window (the second PC).
• On that on-screen keyboard, click Ctrl, then Alt, then End. The second PC shows its security screen.

For a chain of three or more, open the on-screen keyboard on the PC just outside the one you want to reach.

Most of the time you only want one thing from that screen, and there's a direct way to it:

• Task Manager: right-click the remote PC's taskbar and choose Task Manager.
• Lock or sign out: open Start on the remote PC, click your account picture and choose Lock or Sign out. Don't press Windows+L: Windows keeps it for the PC you're sitting at, so it locks yours.
• Restart the remote PC: run this in Command Prompt on it, then wait a minute or two before you reconnect.

shutdown /r /t 0

• With Ctrl+Alt+End: press it, choose Change a password, type the old password and the new one twice, and press Enter.
• In Settings: on the remote PC, open Settings, then Accounts, then Sign-in options, then Password, and choose Change. This is for local accounts. If you sign in to Windows with an email address, that password is changed online instead.
• On a work PC, your company may have its own way to change passwords, so follow IT's instructions.

The new password is the one to use next time you connect. If you saved the old one in Remote Desktop Connection, update it there too, or the next connection is refused.

RemoteAccessApp works differently from Windows' Remote Desktop: a small app, the Agent, runs on your PC in the signed-in user's session and shows you that same desktop. Windows only takes Ctrl+Alt+Del from the PC's own keyboard or from trusted system software, such as a program running as a Windows service, so the Agent can't send Ctrl+Alt+Del, and it can't show or use the Windows lock screen, sign-in screen or the "Do you want to allow this app to make changes" prompt. Someone at the PC has to answer those.

Here's what you can do instead:

• In the Windows app: choose Ctrl+Alt+Del in the session's Keys menu (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K), or press Ctrl+Alt+End. The app explains why it can't be sent and offers Open Task Manager, which is what Ctrl+Alt+Del is usually for. In the Linux app, the Keys menu says the same and has Task Manager right below it.
• In a browser: open Shortcuts in the session's toolbar and choose Ctrl+Alt+Del for the same explanation and button, or pick Task Manager directly. On a phone, the key strip above the keyboard has a Ctrl+Alt+Del key that does the same.
• Don't lock the PC you're using remotely. Once it's locked, RemoteAccessApp can't sign you back in, so someone at the PC has to.
• Change a Windows password in Settings, as above, rather than from the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen.

Every session shortcut is listed in keyboard shortcuts in a remote session. If Task Manager opens but ignores your clicks, it's running as administrator; the help article an admin window is blocking my clicks explains when RemoteAccessApp can control it.