print screen

The Windows clipboard is a location thats reserved in the physical RAM of the computer. Windows reserves a porton of the memory for the clipboard, when an image or text is coppied to the clipboard it is reserved into the space in the memory ready to be pasted into an email or document.

Windows only allows you to copy 1 item to the clipboard at once. If you copy another bit of text then this overwrites the previous entry.

If you use office then you will have probally noticed the package has its own built in clipboard. This offers more functionality over the standard clipboard allowing you to see upto the last 20 entries.

When you exit the application you have the option to leave the data on the clipboard or remove this and free up the reserved spot.

The ability to capture an entire image of the users computer screen can come in very handy and can make our job as techs easier to work out whats going on.

Heres one good example.

A user is working remotely from home. They connect to there work network via logging onto a VPN. The user emails you a screenshot from there personal email address complaining that they carnt connect to the network. You look at the screenshot and notice that the VPN icon doesnt appear on the system tray.

From the screen print you are able to work out that there VPN connection is not established and this being the main reason why there unable to connect.

In the real world IT issues arnt always that easy but sometimes a screenprint can give clues to where the issue may lie. If the user is getting an error codes or messages get them to send a screenshot of the error. This can aid to diagnose the issue faster and work out a resolution to the problem.

Screenshots are commonly used in user guides, they help to educate the user and help the user to cordinate through complex tabs and menu's.

Image writing a guide for a user that has never seen a computer before, You would need to include plenty of screenshots to help guide the user through the menu's to accomplish the task.

Screenshots can also be useful when theres something going on your screen that you dont understand or find it hard to describe over the phone.

There are many reasons why its essential to disable the Print Screen function.

Probally one of the biggest reasons would be copyright, If you were a graphical designed or that of a similar nature would you really want other people to be able to hit a button and capture hours and hours or work.

There are 2 ways this can be done

Accessibility Options / Gpedit.msc (Easy/Moderate)

Click start > Control Pannel > Accessibility Options Click on the "Keyboard" icon to open a window. Find the "FilterKey" option and turn it off. (Win XP Only)

If your running a higher OS you will need to use GPEDIT.MSC

Click Start > Run > type "gpedit.msc" and press ok or enter. Group policy Window will now be open. Click on the plus (+) next to Computer Configuration, Click on the plus next to administrative templates. Click Printers and disable web baised prinitng.

Edit the registry value (Advanced)

Click Start > Run and type "Regedit" This will Open the Windows registry editor

Locale the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControl Set\Control\keyboard layout

On the right hand pane right click on the (default) value and select modify.

type 0000000000000000040000002AE037E0000037E00000540000000000 in the value data field and press enter. Save and restart your PC.

WARNING
The registry is a vital part to Windows. Modifying or changing the registry can lead to an unstable OS or you may find your system fails to boot. Any changes to the registry should be backed up well before the changes are made. Unless your 100% confident with the registry dont attempt this step and stick with the easier options above. I can not take responsiblilty for your actions, use this step only as a guide.

Dos...believe it or not had the ability to use the print screen function.

Although this was seriously limited compared to what the functions that you can perform in windows it was a handy function at the time. This, when pressed allowed for whole portions of the text to be coppied and sent to the printer.

This was a handy function that anybody could perform, however the program didnt know where to stop. If you had a large document open or large ammounts of text on the screen hitting print screen would send the entire text column to the printer. Back in the days of Dos printer Ink ran out quick and was an expensive consumerable to replace.

Dos programs such as Qbasic allowed the user more control over what they could print allowing you to chose what portion of text you wanted to print.

When you press these two keys (Holding down ALT) this will make a copy of the active window that you have got selected.

For example lets say you want to make a print screen of the Windows calculator, with your mouse select the Window so that the bar at the top is highlited then press and hold ALT followed by PRTSC. If done correctly this will copy only the calculator to the clipboard. This saved you having to cut and edit the unwanted parts of the screen out.

Try it!!