Three Finger Salute

The "ThreeFingerSalute" on MicroSoft Windows is "Ctrl+Alt+Delete". (CtrlAltDelete) (Hold down the Control and Alternate keys, and tap the Delete key.) See also TwoFingerSalute?.

In MS-DOS it was used to abort programs. In Windows, it brings up the "Windows Security" dialog, which among other things can invoke the Task Manager which can abort programs, or you can logoff, reboot, change password, etc.

In both MS-DOS and early MSWindows variants, it was mostly used to reboot the computer when software, often the operating systems, had failed in an unrecoverable way. It was this feature, more than any other, that made many users of larger systems look down on the PC as a 'toy computer'. Failures of this type were so common in the early days that users became completely familiar with the ctrl-alt-del sequence. So much so, that MS decided it needed to keep the sequence in latter versions of Windows, even though 'in theory' it should have been more stable. For the first couple of iterations, that was not true. Now, with NT40 or Win2k things have finaly reached reasonable stability in the OS, but we are probably stuck with ctrl-alt-del.

Even linux includes this (configurably) as a 'reboot' command, as so many PC users have internalized the three finger salute.

A system administrator told me that he considers it a good thing that Windows now requires users to do the ThreeFingerSalute (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) to log in:

it teaches them to do this, and
it prevents people from [easily ;-] making a login spoofing program -- because you "can't" capture Ctrl+Alt+Delete under Windows. (See SecureAttentionKey? on CtrlAltDeleteOnNt -- a US DoD security requirement.)

How difficult is it to make a login spoofing program under NT? I thought, if there would be no software flaws, no user process could capture Ctrl+Alt+Delete. How can you do this?

Isn't that the point of the above paragraph?

Put MS-DOS on a box. Make an MS-DOS program that captures Ctrl+Alt+Delete and >looks< like the Windows login.

Actually, if I recall correctly, the three finger salute was the one key sequence you couldn't capture in MS-DOS, not even through BIOS hooks. The same is true in latter-day Windows.

No, you can trap the interupt.

Bah. Just write your own GINA.

WolfgangAmadeusMozart would hold the Ctrl and Alt keys down each with a middle finger, and tap Delete with his nose, then giggle considerably.

He desperately needed a life.