A General Question About "Print Screen" & Paste Into Microsoft Paint

Hello.

I am wondering what happens to the picture of the mouse whenever taking a screenshot of whatever is showing on the monitor.

There are so many ways of taking a screenshot of whatever you have open on the monitor. The way that I take screenshots is pressing the Print Screen button on the keyboard, then opening Microsoft Paint, and then pressing Control + V on the keyboard (to paste the picture that's saved in the Clipboard). Yet the only thing missing is a picture of the mouse from that screenshot.

I am aware that the "missing mouse" has been this way since the beginning of time. So, with all the advancements & customizations in Windows, is there a method to have the mouse show itself in a screenshot?

Thanks!

pepanee said:

Hello.

I am wondering what happens to the picture of the mouse whenever taking a screenshot of whatever is showing on the monitor.

There are so many ways of taking a screenshot of whatever you have open on the monitor. The way that I take screenshots is pressing the Print Screen button on the keyboard, then opening Microsoft Paint, and then pressing Control + V on the keyboard (to paste the picture that's saved in the Clipboard). Yet the only thing missing is a picture of the mouse from that screenshot.

I am aware that the "missing mouse" has been this way since the beginning of time. So, with all the advancements & customizations in Windows, is there a method to have the mouse show itself in a screenshot?

Thanks!

Why yes there is. Use your phone to take the pic.

The cursor is not really a part of what the desktop displays. It's like "outside" the image on the desktop.
How do they do it... I dunno. But in most cases, that's a good thing.


Sometimes, I too wish I could "press a key" and have the desktop image "include" the mouse cursor.
But most of the time, I'm happy it isn't included.


I have noticed that the mouse cursor IS included in "video" captures.

Thanks for the replies. I forgot to mention though, I am looking for a Registry modification, or such, to enable this feature within Windows, without needing to use 3rd party applications.

Hope this helps.

I too take screenshots and paste them into Paint in order to edit them at pixel level.

I discovered Gadwin Print Screen (a free prog to download & use, no spyware/bloatware) years ago, and it is my 'go to' screen grab utility. There is a 'paid-for' Pro version, but I've never needed that.

The latest versions (latest is 6.5) have an annoying 'panel' that appears with every screen grab and even clicking on the option to prevent this action seems to have no effect. That said, the eariler versions work as expected - I'm using Version 4.4 on several Win 10 machines (both Pro and Home) without issue.

Gadwin Print Screen allows you to select the 'hot keys' which activate the program, the options allow you to select the whole screen, the currently active window or a rectangular area (using click & drag) and options to include (or not) the cursor.

Hope this helps

Art

pepanee said:

Thanks for the replies. I forgot to mention though, I am looking for a Registry modification, or such, to enable this feature within Windows, without needing to use 3rd party applications.

Of course there's a way- if you're determined to avoid some of the great 3rd party tools (remember an O/S is supposed to be an O/S, simply providing a higher level interface and API so that applications can be built to do more sophisticated things).

Here it is:
How to Include the Mouse Cursor in a Windows 10 Screenshot | Laptop Mag

Also mentioned towards the end of this:
https://**************.com/windows/h...10-screenshot/

Enjoy!

Steps Recorder seems to work okay. It doesn't take a screenshot in every open program for some reason.


Here's what happens when I click anything inside Google Chrome:

Hi,

I'm really puzzled as to why you appear to be so resistant to use a 3rd party app that will do exactly what you want.

As you have found, you may find 'workarounds' that do what you want but not work in every instance.

Whilst PrintScreen doesn't record video, it hasn't ever failed in a screen capture.

I prefer the versions prior to 4.5 (the interface changed to become, in my opinion, less user-friendly with later versions) and 4.4 works happily with the latest version of Windows 10 Home & Pro (21H2).

The problem is finding a reliable source of the earlier versions, should you decide to go that way.

Art

pepanee said:

Steps Recorder seems to work okay. It doesn't take a screenshot in every open program for some reason.

Thanks for your reply... I hope you're not looking for a solution to that. See ArthurDent's post above..

I prefer using Windows itself for simplicity and not have extra open programs. That's a reason why I don't prefer 3rd party programs if it's possible to use Windows itself to perform the task on hand.

But yes, I've been doing a bit of research and found a 3rd party program that I can open, take a screenshot, including a picture of the mouse, then close that program when I'm done. I found one called: Greenshot
I had to go through the settings and extensive steps to figure out a way to be able to have the program just copy the screen onto the clipboard when pressing Print Screen, without all the extra features that the app bothers me with. (It's one other reason why I don't like using 3rd party programs.)