Windows and all apps suddenly in black and white... ooo, it's a feetcha not a bug!

[Muse]

OMG... I just did another search and found this: Windows key + Control + C... it turns everything B&W. Even a reboot doesn't restore color. Dang, you'd think they wouldn't play that trick on you. I must have hit that by accident. I don't hit the Windows key a lot, but sometimes, when I "know what I'm doing."

I was in a session, everything normal and suddenly every app and Windows desktop are in black and white. Am running Windows 10 64 bit on this machine:

Lenovo product ID 6465CTO
Lenovo ThinkPad T61
Intel Core 2 Duo @2.40GHz, T7700
Memory 8GB
640GB HD
VGA Intel 965 Express GMA X3100 128MB
Display WSXGA + TFT 15.4' resolution 1680x1050
Network Wireless Intel 4965 AGN

I reboot and the Windows sign on screen looks fine, it's in color. I sign in, the desktop and everything still black and white. I reboot again, sign on screen is OK, the desktop shows up in color (bluish, i.e. normal) but after about 4-5 seconds it turns grey again, which it is now. In Display settings/color I see an all grey color pallet to choose from and no obvious settings I can deal with. What can I look for as a solution?

 

[mikeymikec]

Sounds like accessibility (high contrast) mode. CP > Ease of access options and Settings > themes should right it.

 

[whm1974]

Did you try pressing Windows Key + Control +C again?

 

[Muse]

Did you try pressing Windows Key + Control +C again?

Yup, on a different Win10 machine, sure enough everything went B&W! Mon, sounds to me like an April Fools joke!

Ya know, the funny thing is they engineered this god awful weird non-reboot-erasable trick eerily close to Control + C, which any 1/2 way computer savvy user knows is the Copy keyboard combo. If you are just a little off on your Control key press and you are going for a Copy, you get Control + Windows + C dullsville! Smackaroonie!!! Shame on MS. Little known gotcha (or April Fools joke...).

 

[sweenish]

Talk about overblown.

 

[corkyg]

Check this out - how to get Win 10 grayscale mode back to color:

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-enable-grayscale-mode-windows-10

 

[bruceb]

That article talks about color filters. So if you turn Color Filters to "Off" will that stop this nonsense ? ? Or is the other way around ? ? Turn Color Filters to "On" to stop it ? ?

 

[quikah]

That article talks about color filters. So if you turn Color Filters to "Off" will that stop this nonsense ? ? Or is the other way around ? ? Turn Color Filters to "On" to stop it ? ?

Ctrl + Win + C is the keyboard shortcut to toggle color filters on/off.

Kind of odd they don't have a pop-up like all the other accessibility keyboard shortcuts.

 

[bruceb]

Yes and there is also a Toggle Switch buried in the Options .. so depending on which way the Toggle is set, then Ctrl+Win+C might not do anything.

 

[Muse]

Talk about overblown.

I have no idea what you mean here but it took me 1/2 hour or more to get the problem fixed. My first search came up with irrelevant stuff, and you in particular were worthless.

 

[quikah]

Yes and there is also a Toggle Switch buried in the Options .. so depending on which way the Toggle is set, then Ctrl+Win+C might not do anything.

Huh? The key combo will always do something. If the toggle is set to on the combo will toggle it off, toggled on then the key combo will toggle it off.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ctrl + Win + C is the keyboard shortcut to toggle color filters on/off.

Kind of odd they don't have a pop-up like all the other accessibility keyboard shortcuts.

Huh. I guess one learns something new every day! Thanks.

I wonder why they have it on a keyboard shortcut though. While I can guess that multiple people using the same computer might not have the same form of colour blindness (so therefore a shortcut would be handy for them), I would have thought the standard logic would be that those people would have different user accounts (I assume it's a per-user setting). My subsequent guess is that those who suffer from such forms of colour blindness might only want the filter when trying to look at certain things. I've never had a customer ask for customisation based on colour blindness though, so no experience on this particular topic!

- edit - at second glass I noticed corkyg's article mentions the keyboard shortcut as well.

 

[Muse]

I have a form of color blindness but it never occurred to me that I can improve my computer experience with color adjustments in Windows. I am "total green blind," so any tweak to give more green would have zero effect on my vision.

It's the height of stupidity (more likely rascality) that MS made a toggle shortcut of Winkey+cntrl+C, it's rather easy to hit that accidentally when going for Control+C, then you are up a creek if you have no idea what the hell went wrong with your computer. I have to think someone was giggling behind his hand when he made that decision.

 

[Muse]

Huh. I guess one learns something new every day!

I've always hated that remark, which one hears very commonly. If you only learn one new thing a day in today's world you are a dolt.

 

[quikah]

It's the height of stupidity (more likely rascality) that MS made a toggle shortcut of Winkey+cntrl+C, it's rather easy to hit that accidentally when going for Control+C, then you are up a creek if you have no idea what the hell went wrong with your computer. I have to think someone was giggling behind his hand when he made that decision.

I disagree it is stupid to have a keyboard shortcut, what is stupid is to not have a pop-up for it. There are several accessibility keyboard shortcuts, but they all will pop-up a window asking you if you want it. For example, press shift 5 times to turn on sticky keys, it will pop-up a window asking if you want it.

On the other hand I can see why they don't have a pop-up, as this is something that might need to be turned off/on repeatedly depending on what is on screen.

Also I hardly find this easy to hit accidentally, Windows 10 has been out for 2+ years, first I heard about it. I have never hit that combo on accident.

 

[Muse]

I disagree it is stupid to have a keyboard shortcut, what is stupid is to not have a pop-up for it. There are several accessibility keyboard shortcuts, but they all will pop-up a window asking you if you want it. For example, press shift 5 times to turn on sticky keys, it will pop-up a window asking if you want it.

On the other hand I can see why they don't have a pop-up, as this is something that might need to be turned off/on repeatedly depending on what is on screen.

Also I hardly find this easy to hit accidentally, Windows 10 has been out for 2+ years, first I heard about it. I have never hit that combo on accident.

The stupid part is that it's too easy to hit it by accident. The Windows key is adjacent to the Control key. Not having the popup compounds that problem. If they wanted to give you the option of not having the popup they could give you a checkbox to let you do that in the popup and explain how you can restore the popup right then and there.

 

[escrow4]

The bigger question is why are you still using a T7700 in 2018. The 2018 Ipad is faster . . . .

 

[Muse]

The bigger question is why are you still using a T7700 in 2018. The 2018 Ipad is faster . . . .

Ipad, you are talking Apple? I've never bought or used anything Apple that didn't have little black seeds.

The T7700 is my fastest machine but I don't notice speed problems with my lesser machines. They are fine and some of them are way slower than the T7700 and it has double the RAM of the other machines too. Only problem is my browsers crash or bog down when there's not much RAM to spare.

Edit: OK, at my volunteer gig I use their Apple stuff because the GM says "we're an Apple house," I have nothing to say to that or alot of other things she says. But I don't buy Apple electronics, period.

 

[sweenish]

I have no idea what you mean here but it took me 1/2 hour or more to get the problem fixed. My first search came up with irrelevant stuff, and you in particular were worthless.

This thread ended up being pretty worthless, so I guess we're even. If you don't know what overblown means, that's hardly my fault.

 

[XavierMace]

It's the height of stupidity (more likely rascality) that MS made a toggle shortcut of Winkey+cntrl+C, it's rather easy to hit that accidentally when going for Control+C, then you are up a creek if you have no idea what the hell went wrong with your computer. I have to think someone was giggling behind his hand when he made that decision.

You are literally the only person I know who has this "problem" and I support a LOT of Win 10 systems. PEBKAC.