Sometimes you may want to dim or turn off your computer screen, but keep the device running for a specific program to continue downloading a file from the internet, for example. In this case, some people turn off the screen by pressing the power button on desktop computer screens or using the tricks we have reviewed to turn off a laptop screen. However, there is a faster way to turn off the computer screen, such as creating a keyboard shortcut that performs this function. This cannot be done through Windows system settings, but let’s see how it can be done starting from the following lines.
This method relies on a simple tool called NirCmd from NirSoft company, which allows Windows users to perform some useful tasks silently in the background, without displaying windows or prompting the user to take any additional actions. Among these tasks, you can mute the computer’s sound completely or temporarily turn off the computer screen using keyboard shortcuts only. Although NirCmd tool does not actually provide an explicit option to create a shortcut that turns off the screen, setting up the shortcut manually is very simple and only takes a few steps as we explain below.
To begin, go to NirCmd page and scroll down until you find the download links. There are two versions based on your Windows version, 32-bit or 64-bit, download the appropriate version, noting that the tool is very small in size and does not exceed 1 megabyte. After downloading the file, right-click on it and choose “Extract all” to extract the tool’s driver files. You can save the extracted folder on the desktop or any accessible location on the computer, then open this folder and type “cmd” in the address bar within the File Explorer window as shown in the attached image above, to open the Command Prompt directly inside the “NirCmd” folder to execute the necessary commands.
Once you open the Command Prompt window, all you have to do is copy and paste the following command into the Command Prompt window and press the Enter key:
nircmd.exe cmdshortcutkey “~%folder.desktop%” “TurnOFF Screen” “CTRL+SHIFT+T” monitor off
After executing the above command, you will find a new shortcut on the desktop named “TurnOFF Screen,” and now when you want to quickly turn off the computer screen, all you need to do is double-click on this shortcut or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + T to completely dim the screen, and simply moving the mouse cursor or pressing any key on the keyboard will immediately turn on the screen.
After creating the shortcut, you may need to make changes to it, such as changing the button combination to be pressed on the keyboard to run it, changing the shortcut icon, or editing its location. To do any of these actions, right-click on the shortcut on the desktop and choose “Properties,” then from the window that appears, click on the Shortcut key field and press the key combination you want to use to run the shortcut.
Note that Windows considers Ctrl + Shift keys essential in any shortcut, but if the keyboard has calculator buttons, you can use them by selecting a number or symbol from the calculator buttons and with a single press of a button, the shortcut will be executed. If you wish, you can also change the shortcut icon, just click on the “Change Icon” button and choose an icon from the window that appears, then press Apply. In any case, you can customize the shortcut as you like, but there is a point to note, which is a delay between pressing the shortcut and executing the command, but it works well.
