How To Screenshot The Lock Screen And Login Screen In Windows 10

Windows 10 comes with a built-in screenshot tool. It is pretty basic and will likely keep a lot of screenshot tools like Greenshot popular for days to come. The problem with the tool, and all screenshot apps available is that they work on the desktop. You can’t use any of them to screenshot the lock screen or the login screen in Windows 10. To screenshot the lock screen and login screen you need to use the good ole Print Screen key and the Snipping tool.

Screenshot Lock Screen

Lock your system via the Win+L shortcut. When you screen is locked, tap the Print Screen key on your keyboard. Now, unlock your system and launch the Paint app. Click the ‘Paste’ button or hit the Ctrl+V combination to paste the screen capture from your clipboard.

And here’s what it looks like;

You can capture any activity and all widgets though the cursor will not be included. The Print Screen key, and its associated function has long been a part of Windows. As far back as Windows 98 you could use it to capture the screen.

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Unfortunately this won’t work on the login screen. You can’t use the Print Screen button or the Windows+Print Screen combination to capture your lock screen. That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Again, the tool needed to screenshot the login screen in built into Windows and has been for a long time; the snipping tool.

Screenshot Login Screen

In order to use the Snipping tool to capture the login screen, you will have to tweak the Windows registry. You need to be able to use the tool from the login screen via the ease of access button.

Open the Windows registry and go to the following location;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options

Create a new key via Edit>New>key and name it utilman.exe. Next, inside this key, create a new string value via Edit>new>String value and name it Debugger. Set its value as;

C:\Windows\System32\SnippingTool.exe

Lock your system and go past the lock screen to your login screen. Click the ease of access button and the snipping tool will launch. Use it to capture the entire screen. It won’t save the screenshot but it has been copied to your clipboard. Login to your system, open Paint, and paste it. Here’s what it looks like;

If the above doesn’t work for you, or you want to record a screencast or use your preferred screenshot tool, check out how you can run an app on the login screen in Windows 10.