Windows 8 Inbuilt Screenshot Feature

Previous Windows versions too had inbuilt capability of capturing screen or taking screenshot but with Windows 8, it is improved. Unlike, saving the image in clipboard which required you to save in MS Paint like Image editing tools,Windows 8 can capture and save the screenshot image file directly.

Press WIN+PrntScrn button and you will notice screen flickers and screenshot is captured similar to iPhone minus the capture sound.

It should be noted that inbuilt screenshot tool captures complete screen. If you want a tool to capture single window or specific area on screen, you can download ScreenPresso which is a free alternative of Snagit.

Windows 8 Screenshot Folder

All screenshots taken are saved directly as image file (PNG) in a directory. And this screenshot folder of Windows 8 is in Pictures folder which can be accessed from User’s library.

To be more specific: C:\Users\Username\Pictures\Screenshots

Screenshot images filenames are saved in this manner “Screenshot (X)” where X is the number count.

It also works the old way! This function not only saves the screenshot as image but also in your clipboard. So, go to Paint or any Image editor and click Paste to get the image there instantly.

How To Change Windows 8 Screenshot Folder

Go to the directory where screenshots are saved. Right click and access properties of that folder.

Last tab is “Location” where you can see a “Move” button. Click on Move to set new directory as Screenshot saving location. Click Apply to save the changes.

While applying changes, you will be asked whether you want to move existing content to new directory or not. I will leave this up to you.

Click either Yes or No, future screenshots will be saved at new location specified.

Reset Windows 8 Screenshot Count

I noticed that even after deleting previous screenshots file, Windows 8 doesn’t forget the count. This can be problematic or in better word “irritating”. But, here’s a trick with which you can reset the capture count of screenshots in Windows 8.

Capture count is saved in a registry which has to be over-written to start from 1.

To do that: Go to Registry Editor – Press WIN+R >> Type “regedit” in Run command. Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

On right side, you will see a key named “ScreenshotIndex”. Right click on it and select Modify.

Change the value to 1 and press OK.

Don’t worry, if there is already a file with same number, counter increments automatically and image is saved with next number in file name.

If going to long process looks tedious, you can download a registry key to Reset Windows-8 Screenshot Count in ScreenshotIndex key. Open the zip folder, it contains one registry key which can reset count by just double clicking on it.