Windows Magic Trick: How To Capture Error Windows
Computer programs sometimes display technical error messages that are not easily understood by regular people. So, often when dealing with tech support or the help desk, you are asked what the error message is and most of the time you will not be able to remember unless you wrote it down or captured a snapshot or the error message. If you are like me, you didn’t write it down, and you don’t know how to capture an error message so you click OK or CANCEL and go on with your life. Here is what to do next time your computer gives you an error message or your support tech asks you to send in your “screen captures” of these error messages so they can analyze your problem.
The easiest way to capture a snapshot of the full screen is to press the PRINT SCREEN key. But, in most cases, that is overkill. If you only want to capture a snapshot of the active window (the one displaying the error message), first press and hold the ALT key and then press the PRINT SCREEN key once. It may look like nothing happened, however, you can now let go of all the keys and know that your copy of the error message is now safely stored on the clipboard. The clipboard is another way to say stored in memory, but this memory is what you use to copy and paste text or images. Let’s take a look.
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Click on START, then RUN and type: mspaint
Now click on the OK button. MSPaint will open.
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With Microsoft Paint open, go to the edit menu and choose PASTE. You should now see a snapshot of the error message box or whatever windows was active when you did keyboard shortcut discussed above. Save the snapshot into a file and remember where you saved it and what you named it so that you can send it to tech support as an attachment. There’s really nothing more to it.
So the next time you get an error message you don’t recognize or that may have been popping up regularly, take a snapshot of it, save it and use it to look up the error online or to show your tech support person. One of the best ways to properly service your computer is to provide your technician with the right information. Capturing an error message is one way to do that.
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<ALT> + <PrtSc> or <Print Screen>
(capture a picture of the active window)
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