Why can't I shoot or make printscreen games in fullscreen?

Hi

Welcome to the Microsoft community and thank you for sharing your concern with us today. I understand from your message that you have a printscreen problem. We are here to help you with this issue.

Judging from your description, it may be due to some settings of the graphics card or system settings that you cannot take a screenshot. You can try a clean boot to eliminate third-party software interference.

(Disclaimer: A “clean boot” starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It helps to determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program and to isolate the cause of a problem. These steps of "clean boot" might look complicated at first glance. However, to avoid any trouble for you, please follow them in order and step-by step so that it will help you get you back on track.)

Or press alt+printscreen to take a screenshot of the active window to see if it helps. You can also try to disable the graphics card acceleration option to see if the normal screenshot cannot be taken because the graphics card acceleration is turned on.

Let us know if it works.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Hello,

Unfortunately, I disabled all services, I left only Defender enabled in the startup and restarted.

And the result? Nothing has changed. The print screen still does not work.

And I don't have any dedicated graphics, only the one that was part of the Intel processor.

This may be caused by an installed application. But I don't know when this problem arose, so I can only guess which one it is and whether uninstalling would help.

Hello,

Unfortunately, I disabled all services, I left only Defender enabled in the startup and restarted.

And the result? Nothing has changed. The print screen still does not work.

And I don't have any dedicated graphics, only the one that was part of the Intel processor.

This may be caused by an installed application. But I don't know when this problem arose, so I can only guess which one it is and whether uninstalling would help.

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

Have you ever noticed that you can't take screenshots since about when? Have you ever updated your system or something else? You can try to restore your system to an earlier period when the system was normal and see if you can get back to normal screenshots.

Let us know if it works.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

-----------------------

* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Hello,

The only restore point I had in Windows was from last Friday, which is very late.

I still tried, but nothing changed.

I make screenshots very often, but different programs. I do very little with games (I honestly don't remember the last time I did it), so the problem may have been here for a long time.

Anyway, I've never noticed this problem in the past (not even in previous OS)

UPDATE: The function to turn off the fullscreen and display the game only in the window, it must be possible to set in the game itself, or set in the ini file or using the graphics mode. (Windows probably doesn't have this feature)

However, I tried a random game and it works. I am attaching a photo for sure. So, this is obviously somehow related to the fullscreen. But how, I really don't get it.

UPDATE: The function to turn off the fullscreen and display the game only in the window, it must be possible to set in the game itself, or set in the ini file or using the graphics mode. (Windows probably doesn't have this feature)

However, I tried a random game and it works. I am attaching a photo for sure. So, this is obviously somehow related to the fullscreen. But how, I really don't get it.

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

From your description, you can take a screenshot in window mode, indicating that the problem is still in the system settings and graphics card. You can try the following steps to solve it:

1. If you are using a game program, you can set the window to borderless full-screen mode in the game display settings, switch DX mode (directx11or directx12 etc), or enable disable vertical synchronization to see if it works.

2. If you are using a program application, you can try to modify the displayed value of the registry and follow the steps below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\DCI] 

"Timeout"=dword:00000000 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copy the above content into the Notepad application.

Then click File in the upper left corner of the Notepad window, and click in the drop-down menu: Save as.

In the Save As window, click Desktop, enter: printscreen.reg in the file name column, and then click: save;

After we click save, a printscreen.reg registry file icon will be displayed on the system desktop. Double-click the printscreen.reg icon with the left mouse button, and a registry editor prompt dialog box pops up: Click: Yes (Y);

3. You can also try to enter safe mode (disable driver mode) and take a screenshot to see if the screenshot is normal.

Feel free to post back if you need more assistance.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

-----------------------

* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply.

1. The ability to turn on/off vertical sync in games is not much. Many older games, but also some newer ones, have quite austere graphics settings.

And DirectX? I always install it together with a game when it offers me and I don't update it at all.

2. It had no effect.

3. It had no effect.

However, I tried to install one mode in the game. And suddenly it works (see photo below).

However, for other games, it suddenly works completely differently. Before, it went like I minimized the game first and then made a print screen. While now the printscreen is a black screen.

I don't think it's worth solving. This is a typical bug that only restores Windows, which I wanted to do a long time ago, to fix.

Thank you anyway

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply.

1. The ability to turn on/off vertical sync in games is not much. Many older games, but also some newer ones, have quite austere graphics settings.

And DirectX? I always install it together with a game when it offers me and I don't update it at all.

2. It had no effect.

3. It had no effect.

However, I tried to install one mode in the game. And suddenly it works (see photo below).

However, for other games, it suddenly works completely differently. Before, it went like I minimized the game first and then made a print screen. While now the printscreen is a black screen.

I don't think it's worth solving. This is a typical bug that only restores Windows, which I wanted to do a long time ago, to fix.

Thank you anyway

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

Your problem may indeed be more complicated and difficult to find. You can install the system by overwriting and restoring it. This method may also be the most direct and helpful. Check this link for the steps to overwrite the system. When you finish downloading, open it and choose to overwrite the installation and keep personal files and data.

Let us know if it works.

You are welcome to reply to this topic at any time, and sincerely thank you for your support of Microsoft products and services.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

-----------------------

* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.

Hello,

I'm sorry, but in fact, I've done windows recovery a lot before. (In Windows 8, something went wrong forever). However, since upgrading to Windows 10, I would count the number of restores on the fingers of one hand. But why am I saying that? I wanted to do the restoration at the end of 2020. (But I finally have to do it)

Anyway, I'll do it in the coming days and let you know if it will work. (I strongly doubt it won't help)

However, why should I use Windows 11 Installation Media? If I want to restore windows 11, I can do it directly from the settings and I don't need any external software. So, what's the difference, please?

Hello,

I'm sorry, but in fact, I've done windows recovery a lot before. (In Windows 8, something went wrong forever). However, since upgrading to Windows 10, I would count the number of restores on the fingers of one hand. But why am I saying that? I wanted to do the restoration at the end of 2020. (But I finally have to do it)

Anyway, I'll do it in the coming days and let you know if it will work. (I strongly doubt it won't help)

However, why should I use Windows 11 Installation Media? If I want to restore windows 11, I can do it directly from the settings and I don't need any external software. So, what's the difference, please?

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

From your description, you have performed a lot of this system restore and reset before, but the system restore and system reset are different from the mirror repair we recommend using the MCT tool. System restore is to restore to your previous system In a normal period of time, the reset is only a reset based on your current system files, and will not repair your system files. But the mirror repair can directly repair and overwrite your system files, similar to refreshing and repairing all your core components, it is very likely to repair your system problems, so we suggest you perform an MCT tool mirroring repair here, take a look Is it useful or not.

Disclaimer: Please back up all your important data before performing it.

Let us know if it works.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

-----------------------

* Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here.

* Please check and vote this answer if it helps as it will be beneficial to more community members reading here.