Tip o’ the Week #183 – Screen Grabs on Windows 8.1

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If you’ve taken the plunge and updated to Windows 8.1, you may have spotted a mix of improvements (like the updated Search pane behaviour which needs a little getting used to, but works well), and some funnies (compatibility issues with IE11, internal tools like GMOBI or CRM not working so well, etc). All in, a happier upgrade but one which is quite clearly still a preview.

Now, one of the first downers some people have spotted is the fact that the Search charm has nabbed the WindowsKey+S combination – it makes more sense than Win+Q, so what’s the rub? Well, OneNote uses WindowsKey+S to grab portions of the screen, either for pasting into notebooks or just sticking the screen grab into the clipboard for later use.

There are alternatives to the handy OneNote process; like using the Snipping Tool, though like many other such utilities, it can’t grab portions of the Modern UI apps. Never fear, a solution is at hand…

If you’re a fan of Win+S, you can re-establish a way of screen grabbing by following the steps below…

· Fire up a PowerShell windows with admin privilege – press WindowsKey+X, and select Windows PowerShell (Admin) from the list. (note that in Windows 8, this option was “Command Prompt (with admin)” – is the shift to PowerShell in Win8.1 the death knell for the black-background command line?

· Copy and Paste the following command into the command line and hit Enter:
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\OneNote\Options\Other" /v ScreenClippingShortcutKey /t REG_DWORD /d 65 /f

· Either reboot your PC, or…
… kill off the Send to OneNote Tool (32 bit) application from Task Manager (press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC), then restart the application by pressing WindowsKey+R and entering ONENOTEM.

Now, you should be able to catch a screen grab by pressing WindowsKey + A. Not as obvious as Win+S, but it’s better than nothing.

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