Those legendary hotkeys belong to and Intel HD Graphics Drivers . For over a decade, Intel integrated graphics have shipped with a feature called "Rotation Hotkeys" enabled by default. If you have a laptop or a desktop PC with an Intel CPU (which is most of them), those keys work seamlessly on your primary monitor—until you install a discrete NVIDIA GPU.
This free utility specifically brings back the Ctrl + Alt + Arrow Key functionality for most graphics cards, including NVIDIA. nvidia rotate screen hotkey
Windows itself has a rotation lock, but no native hotkey. However, you can create one using the (Windows + P) is for projection, not rotation. The real trick involves the NVIDIA Control Panel plus a third-party macro tool. Those legendary hotkeys belong to and Intel HD
If the rotate option is missing entirely from the NVIDIA Control Panel, your drivers might be outdated or corrupted. Go to the NVIDIA Driver Downloads page to update to the latest version for your specific GPU. This free utility specifically brings back the Ctrl
The deeper lesson here is about the ecology of PC computing. Unlike Apple’s walled garden, where a feature either exists or doesn’t, Windows and NVIDIA offer a sandbox. Sometimes the brick isn’t in the box—but they gave you the tools to make your own brick.
After testing every method across five different NVIDIA GPUs (from a GTX 1060 to an RTX 4090), the conclusion is final: