When you unplug your monitor but your laptop thinks it's still plugged in...

Well, I did not think my first post here would have be completely unrelated to either web or game dev, but here we are. I guess my philosophy moving forward: if I run into the same issue and have to google the same question more than twice, a bookmark alone will not suffice.

Bottum line up front: if you unplug your monitor(s) from your Windows laptop, usually when the Windows laptop is sleeping/hibernating, a quick trick I discovered is to hit

Ctrl + Shift + Win + B

This is a universal refresh (AFAICT works with Intel, Nvidia, and AMD) and forces your GPU driver to reload. You’ll hear a short beep and your screen will flicker, and boom: you've forced Windows to reset your graphics driver without rebooting.

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/1fhhtuh/tip_of_the_week_try_pressing_win_shift_ctrl_b_if/ (hopefully this post remains online forever :D)