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Ctrl + Alt + Up (and Down) do not seem to be assigned to any Windows function, yet they are not passed correctly by Remote Desktop. Can this be fixed?

Tested on Windows 8.

clhy
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eee
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    What do you expect this keyboard combination to do exactly? – Ramhound Mar 17 '14 at 14:35
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    It is directed at my editor that runs on the remote. It does not reach the remote as intended. Other key combinations are recognized correctly, e.g. Ctrl-Alt-PgUp/PgDn. – eee Mar 17 '14 at 15:45
  • A lot of times Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down/Left/Right is used by graphics card drivers to change the orientation. This has caused problems for me as well when I try to use Sublime Text. – Alex McKenzie Mar 17 '14 at 17:01
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    Checked, disabled both on the host and the remote. – eee Mar 18 '14 at 07:57
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    Same problem here under Windows 10 (i edited the original question). They Key combination is not in use by something else. – masgo Feb 12 '19 at 20:16
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    They are assigned to a RDP function: View session selection bar. See https://winaero.com/blog/rdp-keyboard-shortcuts-windows-10/ – cjbarth Dec 22 '19 at 13:43

4 Answers4

7

I just changed the keyboard shortcut in my editor.

I am using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) on a remote machine and Ctrl+Alt+↑ and Ctrl+Alt+↓ to insert a cursor above and below, respectively. I just went into VS Code and changed the key binding to the key chord Ctrl+↑ Ctrl+↑ and Ctrl+↓ Ctrl+↓, respectively. So I have to push the up or down arrow more times, but at least that works and is quicker than the mouse.

This is done in VS Code by Ctrl+k Ctrl+s, then you can search for "cursor" and you'll see "Add Cursor Above" and "Add Cursor Below", which are the settings to modify.

cjbarth
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I have same problem with CTRL + ALT + UP or DOWN. It looks like default RDP client is broken.

As an alternative try Remote Desktop software from Microsoft Store https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/microsoft-remote-desktop/9wzdncrfj3ps?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

It is not ideal. It has this annoying blue bar at the top of screen in full screen mode. It looks like those programmers don't use their application at all. All web browsers have tabs at top bar now and this annoying bar appears on top of them. Well done Microsoft once more. However, at least keys are send to the remote computer.

174140
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Pawel
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  • After 3 years from your answer, they have removed the "blue bar at the top of the screen" that you mentioned, but unfortunately using the app was not a solution for me, because it doesn't support multiple monitors (but the regular desktop app does) as you can see here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/compare-remote-desktop-clients – Ares9323 Dec 20 '22 at 16:54
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I have recently run into this very annoying problem. My solution was to use another version of mstsc.exe. The problematic version was 6.3.9600.16415. Replaced with 6.1.7601.17514 and everything is fine. Haven't checked other versions.

peter
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I had this same problem, but using different mstsc didn't seem to help. This post:

Remote Desktop: Sending Ctrl-Alt-Left Arrow/Ctrl-Alt-Right Arrow to the remote PC

suggested using hotkeys. So I tried making a simple AutoHotkey (AHK) script. I was able to get this working. Save the following:

 ^!PgUp::^!Up
 ^!PgDn::^!Down

in a .ahk file in the computer I am connecting to, then run the file. The command Ctrl+Alt+PgUp and Ctrl+Alt+PgDn produce the multi-line selection. The only thing I don't really like about it is that the arrows are usually closer to my hands when typing than the PgUp and PgDn buttons, but I still prefer it over the mouse.

Community
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Charles
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