What Does CTRL+WIN+SHIFT+B Do in Windows?

Ok, this is pretty pathetic. But it's possible some other moron could run into this issue so I feel justified in posting.

A few minutes ago I did a "Replace all" in my current document. Apparently, the dialog window informing me that "# occurrences were replaced" was hidden under another window, so I never closed it.

And apparently, when that little window remains open, pressing shortcut keys with the main editor window in focus causes those funky results.

It's strange behavior, to be sure, but it's still a pretty newb-ish scenario. Ah well.

AutoHotKey can do that. You can definitely keep track of the key states, but there's another trick. To remap Ctrl pressed alone to Esc but keep the other Ctrl-based shortcuts, just add this in your default script:

Ctrl & AppsKey::Return
Ctrl::Send {Esc}

This will work fine for you unless you use Ctrl+AppsKey (the key that pops up the contextual menu), but this is highly unlikely. If so just change AppsKey to any key that you never use with Ctrl.

The trick is to make Ctrl a prefix by using it in front of & at least once, and then make the release of the key produce the keystroke you want.