How to take a shot of your desktop

[MrAmericanada]

                                      How to take a shot of your desktop

Why would you use this ?

There are lots of reasons but here's a few examples.
-the date and time on a shot can be useful for checking logs on your computer and for any window that pops up
-like an error for a program aleady installed but now has an issue and pop up warnings or errors.
-you are trying to install but won't and you get an error screen.
-you see something and want to save it from a web page or site.
-you get a persistent error message everytime the computer starts.
-these are just a few

      Simple solution take a "Prt Scr" and paste it into mspaint so you don't have to right it down. Now you can research it by date, time and error message's.


          This is really simple providing you are prepared by having either your favorite photo editor program already
      opened or a similar program capable of saving a file as a .png
      If you don't have any software you can get a copy of "Paint.net" Image Editing software
      free from here.http://www.oldapps.com/old_version_list_Image_Editing.php
      I don't think it will work on 2000PRO but I know it works fine on XP.
      You can also use "MSPaint" that comes with Windows 2000PRO and XP but you may need to save the file as
      a .bmp and convert it to .png using editing software.
      Either way you decide the routine is basically the same.

Preparation...Open your favorite photo editor
or
Click "Start" then "run"
Type "mspaint" then push "Enter" or click "OK"
MSPaint should now be open.
Minimize all windows back to your desktop or take a screen shot of the way it is right now it doesn't matter what you have open for that matter it will take a shot of everything you see.

        If you can see all the icons on your desktop, then look for and push the "Prt Scr" key on
        your keyboard. (when you push it nothing appears to have happened)
       
        Click on MSPaint or your editor program on the taskbar (across the bottom of your screen)
and bring the editor program back up on the screen.
across the top left of the either program's toolbar click "Edit" then click "Paste"
If you are asked to resize click "OK"
(your desktop or your shot should have just appeared on the screen)
across the top left of the either toolbar's click "File" then "SaveAs"
a new window appears
at the top of the new window"Save in" select where you want to save it (i.e. "Desktop")
at the bottom of the window "File name" name your file
also at the bottom "Save as type"
either ".bmp" or ".png"
Use the the drop down window and select .png or save it as a .bmp and convert it later.

Why convert you ask ?
       When you take a screen shot of anything and save it as a .bmp or .jpg the file size is usually in the MB's as opposed to a .png file for the exact same shot would be as little as kb's.
****The smaller the file size, the easier it is to manage and display in a forum or web page.****

If all went well you should now have a screen shot of your own desktop with date and time as well as everything that was on your desktop. No you can add a notation, cut, copy, crop, paste, add text, add objects and edit the shots to suit your needs.

As an example shot "prtscr4.png" is a full screen of a folder in icon view.
As this machine is a 2000Pro I used mspaint and saved the file as a .bmp then converted it to .png
saved as a .bmp file the size is 2.57 MB (2,699,264 bytes)
converted and
saved as a .png file the size is 496 KB (507,904 bytes)
Exact same file converted is saving 2MB of space.