We’ve covered screenshots before, the various ways you can take them and how they can be used to upgrade your documents. The developers at Microsoft are taking a cue from the third-party developers and are introducing better screenshot features in the latest Window 10 builds.

From Microsoft’s Blog, they’ve made the Screen Sketch tool a stand-alone app with customized settings. Previously, it had been hidden behind the Windows Ink menu and settings. You can now use the Windows Key + Shift + S shortcut, and then it will work like Snipping Tool in Windows did to save part (or all) of the screen. A window will then pop-up allowing you to then annotate and share the image as needed.

For more flexibility, you can customize the tool further, especially if the WIN + Shift + S shortcut is too hard to remember:

• Pen tail button. If you have a pen, go into Pen & Windows Ink Settings and you’ll find Screen Snipping is now an option for single click on that button. This will launch you directly into the new snipping experience:
  
• Press Print Screen. You can change the shortcut to use the Print Screen button instead. Go to Keyboard Settings in your control panel and you’ll see a new option that says “Use the Print Screen key to launch screen snipping”. Opening Settings and searching for “print screen” will take you to the right page.
• Press the quick action button in Action Center. Called “Screen snip” – it should be there as soon as you upgrade, or you can always enable it via Notifications & Actions Settings.

While this tool isn’t as powerful as something like Snagit and it doesn’t have some of the features of Greenshot, it is definitely a step in the right direction if you aren’t able to install third-party applications.

Please Note: If you are one of our CompleteCare clients, we are holding off on installing this update. As always, we test patches on a select group of computers before rolling them out everywhere to make sure that they aren’t going to break something that will kill your office’s productivity. Contact us for details or questions.