Microsoft to change PrintScreen button to open the Snipping Tool in Windows 11 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft to change PrintScreen button to open the Snipping Tool in Windows 11

techspot.com

37 pointsthunderbong71 comments

This is just another change for change sake in a long list of stupid that does nothing but get in the way of productive people trying to get things done. Spam in start menu. Dumbed down context menus you have to remove before you can get at what you want. Real control panels hidden behind dumbed down ones with incomplete functionality. Calendar gone from bottom right clock app without trying to google how to get it back. Windows randomly opening in background. Windows randomly disappearing. Round corners on all windows broken until apps catch up. Windows snapping all over the screen in dumb ways. Computer randomly bricks due to unauthorized OS or FIRMWARE updates. Never mind all the stupid changes to office and outlook we're enduring. I'm surprised I didn't get fired for rolling out Windows 11 where I work.

You're getting downvoted, but this is precisely what has been going on.

The root cause is that Microsoft hired a bunch of UX designers to revamp Windows 11, but all of them are Mac users. They're basically copying the MacOS style into Windows, whether it makes sense or not. They don't even use Windows, so they're not eating their own dog food. To them, "success" is that it looks superficially "Mac-like", job done.

Like you, I'm getting fed up with these changes, most of which are objectively worse.

I also tried the "new" Outlook, and it was staggeringly bad. Not only was it shockingly slow, the UI got dumbed down and there's wasted whitespace everywhere. Essential information is hidden, and the whole thing looks like a PowerPoint presentation of what an email client looks like instead of an actual piece of usable software.

I also read about these designers, I really don't get it.

Then again, it fits the ongoing mess of GUI civil war happening in Redmond across Forms, WPF, UWP, WinUI, MAUI, MFC and of course one gets to put Blazor everywhere there is a Web widget, including the previous set of GUI frameworks.

Get to keep making those changes for yearly employee evaluation.

Same applies to other commercial OSes, Google IO hardly brigns anything new that I care about for Android since several years, I already lost track of how many times they have rebooted background services or notification APIs.

The Year of Desktop Linux would be nice, yet even there I lost track of how many audio stacks, laptop support, distribution specific changes just because, and what not, has happened during the last 25 years.

Ubuntu added something like that in 22.04, and it's a pain. Pushing "Print Screen" brings up an interactive thing to decide what you want to capture. You used to be able to capture an image to a file. Now you have to bring up something to save the clipboard.

On fedora, I use alt + print screen to capture the current active window. I practically always maximize my windows so it works for me. Assuming Ubuntu hasn’t messed with gnome too much, this should work. See if it works better for your workflow?

That also works the same way on Windows, even with the new feature turned on.

I am pretty torn on the Ubuntu behavior. On one hand, the pop-up is obnoxious, and it breaks my mental model of what the keyboard button is supposed to do. On the other, screens have gotten so big that it is rare I actually want to save my entire multi-monitor desktop, and only want a tiny viewport.

Alt-Printscreen does work as the original keypress, but I only remember this shortcut after I have already hit Printscreen and see the window appear.

the Win+Shift+S pulls up this same feature. I actually quite like it as its the windows analog for snipping. Or maybe i changed that myself...I dont recall doing it though.

That said, one thing that does bug me is the Ubuntu terminal behavior change that no longer respects right clicks for paste, or ctrl+v for that matter.

I had to go digging to restore that and was causing some havoc with vim as instead of pasting when in Insert mode, it would toss me in some -- Insert (visual)-- mode

Luckily you can change those settings in the keyboard shortcuts (in the standard OS settings).

I wouldn't be so sure that Microsoft will give you an easy toggle in the new control panel for this behaviour.

It does give you an easy toggle:

Settings -> Accessibility -> Keyboard -> Use the PrtScr key to open Snipping Tool.

At least until a forced update "accidentally" changes it back.

I think it will retain.

it's not related to edge/bing so it doesn't affect revenue

Accessibility? What a weird place to put keyboard shortcut settings. No wonder I've never seen the toggle!

Good on Microsoft, I guess!

It's not too far off as the change affects user ergonomics, but it's not the first place one would think of, you're right. I'd prefer an hierarchy like "Devices -> Keyboard -> Shortcut Keys".

Looks like it's a new default with the option to disable.

Is there any way to set the default to another program? Or is Microsoft going to try to lock this down like the whole Microsoft Edge, EdgeDeflector, microsoft-edge:// uri stuff?

Greenshot [1] should be able to do this as long as that option is disabled on Windows [2].

[1]: https://getgreenshot.org/

[2]: https://getgreenshot.org/faq/my-prntscreen-key-no-longer-wor...

I'd love to use Greenshot more, but it seems unfixably broken on hi-res monitors.

Can you elaborate? I have been using GreenShot for ages now and haven't had a single issue with it. It works perfectly well on my 4K monitor. What issues are you experiencing?

The UI is tiny. I'm on Windows 11, which I'm sure is the issue.

Ah, makes sense. I rolled back to Windows 10. 11 is too scary for me.

Have you given ShareX a try? Also open source, but maintained, unlike Greenshot.

I haven't used PrintScreen button since Windows 10. Now my preferred is combo Windows + Shift + S

So is mine, but I hate the delay. I miss many moments because "Snipping Tool" sometimes takes too long to load. At least PrtScr was consistently instant. That said, the feature is behind a setting and can be turned off if needed.

Yes, you're right. Especially when the computer is slow down (by Teams for example).

I think we have to endure this advantage of UWP on Windows, haven't us?

This option already exists in Windows 10, and I have been enabling it for a number of years now.

Settings > Ease of Access > Keyboard > Print Screen shortcut

Also appears if you search "Print Screen" in the Start menu.

Wasn't Microsoft the "let's not break backwards compatibility for any reason" company?

Coming from software development, we do have tests that insert a screenshot into the report in case they fail, and I'm assuming we are not the only ones that found the PrtScr button to be useful for that

> I'm assuming we are not the only ones that found the PrtScr button to be useful for that

I can honestly say you might be the only ones. I've never heard or even conceived of such a thing.

There are a ton of ways to avoid this in the first place:

- use CLI to take the screenshot instead of simulating a key press

- don't test on Windows 11

- use reproducible test instances where you've turned this option off

- (if screenshotting text) use... logs?

I'm truly baffled by this complaint.

If they’re programmatically pressing the PrtScr button, then hopefully it’s not too difficult to write or find a library that takes a screenshot too.

You're saying you have tests that programmatically "press" PrtScr to take a screenshot?

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to preserve the old behavior just for programmatic keypresses.

Then disable the new default behaviour, by using the provided setting?

For 99.999% of the users, I reckon this is a good change. And for the rest they've thoughtfully provided an option to revert.

Oblig xkcd https://xkcd.com/1172/

That ship has sailed with Windows 8 and .NET Core reboot.

Couldn't they set it so the first time print screen is hit they prompt what the shortcut should be? Quietly changing decades old shortcuts would aggravate the hell out of me, even if I like the change.

I say this, but now I do recall how obnoxious sticky keys was.

Microsoft has a history of shitty behavior like this. One of the first things I change when I need to use a new computer is change alt tabs to windows only instead of treating edge tabs like windows.

FWIW, I’m already used to Win+Shift+S by now which I assume does the same thing?

It should

What annoys me to no end is that it only saves to clipboard. There's no easy way to have it as an image.

The many settings and workarounds described around internet don't exist/don't work on Home edition.

They do save to a folder for a while:

"%LocalAppData%\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\ScreenClip"

I have a WSL2 cronjob that does an rsync to the Pictures folder, but its ridiculous how dogshit it is, not only obvious missing functionality but how it takes multiple seconds to do a capture.

> They do save to a folder for a while:

For some reason it in't saving on my machine, but I should check it again

> but its ridiculous how dogshit it is, not only obvious missing functionality but how it takes multiple seconds to do a capture.

So much this.

What's even more mind-boggling is that they've had this behaviour for almost three decades now. And they are clearly adding functionality to it, so it's not like it's a neglected feature. And still, they can't figure out the simple idea of saving the screenshot.

You can easily save to a file. A notification pops up after you take the screenshot, click on it then click the save icon.

Hm... I never see the notification. Could be I've developed a notification blindness or that I turned all notifications off.

Thanks, I'll check it out

It does.

Good thing ShareX [0] exists, and I haven't pressed PrintScreen in years thanks to this amazing tool.

[0] https://getsharex.com/

I guess they took inspiration from the competing Greenshot, where indeed it does remap that button to start the sniping tool right away. I've been enjoying this for many years already :D

They probably took inspiration from the decades of snipping tools on Linux doing exactly that on key press. PrintScreen was AFAIK already in use as a shortcut for the snipping tool in KDE and GNOME when i started using them in the mid '00s

This may be a change compared to thirty years of OS defaults, but it makes total sense to me. People use phones and tablets more than computers these days and on those platforms rich screenshot tools are the norm.

I can't remember the last time I actually wanted a screenshot of all my three screens. I've always used the button in combination with alt or switched to Win+Shift+S for snipping tool.

Assuming Microsoft leaves the quick shortcuts (alt/shift PrtScr) only power users seem to know about in place, I think this will be an improvement for most people.

For automation tools, I hope Microsoft will at least expose a setting for this, though I'd expect them to do it in a registry key if they do it at all. It's not exactly hard to get a screenshot through the Windows API (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.graphics.c...) so getting around that without settings shouldn't be too much of a problem once tooling gets up to date either.

On windows 10 I have purposely enable the setting to open Snip & Sketch. When I press the button, all the screen goes darker, and then I can simply drag to select a rectangle. When I let go of the mouse, the selection is copied to the clipboard and no extra app is kept open, except for a notification that disappears in a few seconds.

I'm now ready to paste it everywhere, which is my main user case.

Do I need to paint on it? Click the notification and edit as you want, then control+c and continue.

Need to save to a file? Click the notification and press the save button.

Need to make a window screenshot or a full desktop one? After the screen goes dark you have buttons at the top to change the selection mode.

To me this makes the most sense, saving directly to a file that you later need to find and open to edit/copy is rather slow, except if you want to user it as a "visual background log" maybe...

Next up: Ctrl + F opens Bing chat.

Except in Outlook because one beta tester does not like it.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20140715-00/?p=50...

Motherf#$#er. I was wondering what bone head made that decision.

Great, now add an option to autosave the screen captures to a folder vs the temporary one that I have to make a script to rsync them out of now before they are expired.

The funny part of this is how it's completely unintuitive on both Windows and Mac in different ways. The print screen button requires pasting from the clipboard into an image editor in Windows. On Mac, you have the Command-Shift-[number] combos.

That said, the Mac combos are nicer, as you can just directly select the whole screen, window, or rectangular area to screenshot with the correct shortcut.

If only there was a good compromise that was cross-platform...

Is this change related to the data leak vulnerability? (this one: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/25/23656627/microsoft-fixes-... )

I don't see how it would be related; the vulnerability has been patched and this change promotes the formerly-vulnerable tool.

I don't like the snipping tool. I hit print screen then paste it into mspaint and save it

I'm always amazed at the wide spread use of mspaint. Since Win 98 I have used better alternatives e.g. irfanview but to each their own.

The good thing about mspaint is I can close my eyes, press the windows key, type mspaint return and I can be reasonably sure it will open without installing anything.

Edit spelling

Win-R mspaint, notepad, and cmd are burned into my brain for getting stuff done. Everything else gets in the way.

Win+R is kind of sacred for me. It remembers the last command so I prefer to keep simple things out of it.

It is easy to press windows and type mstsc and then press enter. This way I don't have to press up and down to get to that long command should I need it in the run command.

You can turn it off completely, or just press Ctrl+PrtScr to trigger the old behavior.

I must admit that the appeal of windows 11 keeps dropping since the day of release.

And this is another nail in the coffin.

It's really true, this is the wrong windows, must wait the next one

I feel like it's actually a rare great idea out of Microsoft.

Too bad the Shipping Too sucks eggs compared to flameshot (now available on Windows!): https://github.com/flameshot-org/flameshot#preview ;)

Oh damn that's something unexpected that I'll love!

Flameshot is so nice!

The snipping tool does copy the image to the clipboard, so other than having to close the window the functionality of PrScr won’t change much.

I rather like it.

Yeah, likewise. I really appreciate that it's the default in Ubuntu. It's rare I need to capture a whole screen, or all three of them.

We're still waiting on a shortcut key to copy only the client area of the window to the clipboard.

As long as they don’t change snipping tools other keyboard shortcuts (again) I’m happy.

Hmm, Is this why my laptop is not windows 11 compatible??

That would be correct.

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