print screen key doesn't work

Question

Hi, I used to be able to press the print screen key and then paste the screen shot into a new document in Photoshop, but not any more. Now when I press print screen and then open a new document, there's no option to paste in the edit menu, and ctrl+v doesn't work, either. I have a Dell XPS 410 running Windows XP SP2 MCE 2005. Any ideas what could be wrong? Thanks for any help with this.

DUDLEY YOUNG · Answer

Go to this site and download the Gadwin Printscreen 3.5. It's free, and works great. You can send the capture to any folder you desire. Enjoy. Dudley.

http://www.gadwin.com/products.htm?prnscr

XPS 410
XP MCE
Core 2 Duo E6400
2GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
ATI Radeon X1300 pro 256MB DVIVGA
Datasafe 320GB/Norton Ghost
48X Combo and 16X DVD+/-RW
Sound Blaster Audigy MB Audio

jmwills · Answer

Shift + Print Screen captures the screen while ALT + Print Screen captures the Active Window.

ipnotica · Answer

Not on mine, it doesn't ;)

But, I'm happy to report that the PrintScreen key started working again after I restarted my computer. I don't have to press Shift - I just press PrintScreen and it copies to the clipboard.

Thank you both for your help. And thanks for the link - I'll check it out just in case this happens again and a restart doesn't fix it.

jmwills · Answer

That would be the first instance I have seen where those keys combos do not work.

ipnotica · Answer

Leave it to me to have the one computer that does weird things!

Even though I've only had to press the PrintScreen key to get a screenshot in the past, I tried every key combination I could think of, (just in case) hoping that something would work. But, no such luck - nothing I did would make the PrintScreen key work. There was no option to paste, because nothing had been copied.

However, at that same time, I found out that the ALT + PrintScreen key combination did still work to copy the active window, but I wanted to copy more than just a little strip at the top of a window. And, of course, once I had pressed that combination of keys, the little window strip was on the clipboard, so then that was the only thing available to paste.

Luckily, the act of restarting the computer magically restored the PrintScreen key to it's former glory, so now I can continue on creating Photoshop tutorials, complete with screenshots. And once again, all's well with the world...... for now, anyway ;)

kmac13 · Answer

I just bought my XPS and the Print Screen has never worked. I've tried everything suggested by this forum. Anything else?

Windows General

print screen key doesn't work

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