Why is my Print Screen disabled?
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The Snipping Tool app includes a built-in screen recorder and allows you to quickly take and annotate screenshots, photos and other images with your pen, touch, or mouse and save, paste or share with other apps. If you like, you can use the Print Screen key to open screen snipping. If you turn off Use the Print screen button to open screen snipping, a screenshot of your display(s) will be taken and saved to the Clipboard when you press the Print Screen key. If you turn on Use the Print screen button to open screen snipping, screen snipping will open when you press the Print Screen key. This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off to use the Print Screen key to open screen snipping for your account in Windows 11. If you have a screenshot or imaging app installed, the app could override and use the Print Screen key instead. Based on other app settings, you might need to restart your computer to apply turning this on or off. Contents
Option One Turn On or Off Use Print Screen Key to Open Screen Snipping in Settings1 Open Settings (Win+I). 2 Click/tap on Accessibility on the left side, and click/tap on Keyboard on the right side. (see screenshot below) 3 Turn On or Off (default) Use the Print screen button to open screen snipping for what you want on the right side under On-screen keyboard, access keys, and Print screen. 5 You can now close Settings if you like. Option Two Enable or Disable Snap Layouts for Maximize Button using a REG fileThe downloadable .reg files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard PrintScreenKeyForSnippingEnabled DWORD 0 = Off 1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do. 2 To Turn On Use Print Screen Key to Open Screen Snipping A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below. Turn_ON_use_Print_Screen_button_to_open_screen_snipping.reg 3 To Turn Off Use Print Screen Key to Open Screen Snipping This is the default setting. A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below. Turn_OFF_use_Print_Screen_button_to_open_screen_snipping.reg 4 Save the .reg file to your desktop. 5 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it. 6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge. 7 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like. That's it, Related Tutorials
For Windows users, it is just a piece of cake to take screenshots immediately with the help of the Windows key and Print Screen button. But sometimes, you may encounter the Print Screen button not working when capturing your screen, so how to deal with this issue? Now let's stick to this topic and find out the solutions to fix the Print Screen button not working on your Windows 10 or 11 PC quickly. Or you can directly try professional screencast software like EaseUS ScreenShot. EaseUS ScreenShot
Fix 1. Restart Your ComputerUsually, a restart might be all Windows needed to get back on track. So, if some buttons are not working on your keyboard, you can restart your computer and check whether the print screen button not working is resolved or not. Just click the Windows icon on your desktop, and select the "Restart" button. Fix 2. Check if the Print Screen Key is EnabledSometimes, you may disable the Print Screen function accidentally and you cannot take screenshots successfully with this feature. So you'd better check if the Print Screen key is enabled. Just hit the F Mode key or F Lock key on your keyboard. Next, check if Print Screen works. (If there are no such buttons on your keyboard, you can skip this solution and go for another one) Fix 3. Use a Hotkey CombinationBesides the Print Screen button, you also can press other keys for taking snapshots on your Windows 10 or 11 computer. Here are some examples:
Fix 4. Stop Background ProgramsSome background programs may cause the Print Screen button not working, including Snippet, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. So to be able to stop this from happening, you need to close these background programs by checking the following steps: Step 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc simultaneously on the keyboard to open the Task Manager window. Step 2. Find the program that you want to close, and then right-click on it to choose the "End Task" option. Once done, press Print Screen to check if it can work or not. Fix 5. Update Keyboard DriverSimilar to your system, your keyboard driver may become outdated, corrupted, or incorrect as well. And that will cause the Print Screen not working on your Windows PC. So, in this case, you should update the keyboard driver like below: Step 1. Press Win + X keys, and then click on the Device Manager option. Step 2. Click the arrow to expand the keyboards. Next, right-click on Standard PS/2 Keyboard and select the "Update Driver" button. Step 3. Select "Search automatically for updated drive software" and it will automatically install the latest driver. After that, check if your Print Screen button is working. Fix 6. Try EaseUS ScreenShotIf all the solutions mentioned above cannot solve this problem, you can try an easy yet powerful free screen capture software: EaseUS ScreenShot. This is an easy-to-use software, which functions in taking snapshots. With its help, you can freely choose to take a full or partial screenshot with one click, or even screenshot dual monitors. Once you capture the image, you can save it or directly copy it to the clipboard for later use. More than that, you can even enhance the screenshots by adding texts, mosaic, numbers, and many more as you like. Last but not least, it is completely free! Now, hit the below button to get this free screen capture software. Step 1. Download and install EaseUS Screenshot on your PC, then launch it. Step 2. You will see two options on the toolbar. The left one is for "Rectangular screenshot", and the right one is for "Full screenshot". To take a partial screenshot, you just click on the left button (or double click the "Ctrl" key), then drag your mouse to select the area on your screen; To take a full screenshot, you can click the right button (or double click "Alt" on keyboard). Step 3. When the screen is captured, you can see an editing toolbar below the screenshot. It provides a set of tools to modify the screenshot by drawing, adding text, mosaic, etc. Step 4. Once done, click the "Save" button or press "Space" to save the screenshot. Or, you can click "Copy" or hit the "Enter" key to copy the screenshot to the clipboard. Final WordsOn this page, we provide 6 solutions to help you fix the Print Screen button not working on your Windows PC. You can pick any workable way to solve your problem. We hope this post can really help you! |
