Ctrl+Alt+Delete in SendKeys

I've been trying for some time to send the "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" keys using SendKeys but none of the combinations I've tried work :

set shell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
shell.SendKeys "^%{DEL}"

I saw somewhere that Ctrl = ^ and Alt = % and Delete = {DEL} but that won't do anything.
Anyone have an idea as to what I should use in order for it to work ?

What are you trying to do?

Also, if you want to send all 3 keys at once, I think the command is Shell.SendKeys ("^%{DEL}") I have not tested this, but this is what I got from the documents.

There was a discussion about this some weeks ago
[url="http://www.visualbasicscript.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1796"][/url]

HTH

If you are trying to do this to A locked station or one that is not logged in, I don't think there is a way to do that. Security built into Windows, though some have used remote programs such as VNC or PCanywhere to get around this. I think there is a Hey Scripting Guy article on Microsoft about this.

I was just testing to see if it could be possible to launch start manager that way, but it isn't. Actually for shell.SendKeys "^%{DEL}" (which was what I initially tried), nothing apparent happens. However, for shell.SendKeys "^%{DELETE}", the first time I run that, it locked my computer, so I re-ran it to unlock. That only worked once though :s ...
I checked that other thread and tried everything but nothing launched taskmanager that way. I know I can use shell.run to do that but I just wanted to test with SendKeys.
Cheers and Thanks

I believe SENDKEY only sends a key combination to a specific application (whatever is the active one) intead of the system, that's why it didn't work.

If it locked your computer the first time it is ran, how did you manage to run it the second time to unlock it while the system is locked ?

well the keyboard was the only thing which got locked. so I dblclicked on the .vbs file again.

hmmm... how did CTRL-ALT-DEL lock a keyboard but not the mouse ? I think I'm confused by what you intend to achieve here. Did you want to use the script to lock a workstationo by using CTRL-ALT-DEl and click "Lock computer" button in the "Windows Security" window or was it something else that I completely missed ?

nope, I wanted to see if it's possible to launch taskmgr.exe using shell.Sendkeys but it appears as though it isn't. I know I can launch it using shell.run "taskmgr" but just wanted to test with sendkeys really.

ah. I see. heh.. always trying something different eh ?

Why don't you just try this:

set shell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
shell.SendKeys "^+{ESC}"

Using Ctrl+Shift+Esc will launch the Taskmanager without regard to which window is active.

Good point, apprently, CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't work but CTRL-SHIFT-ESC will. So I guess my assumption on the requirement for an "application" for SENDKEYS to work is wrong.