Share your favourite tech hack or shortcut!

How to capture quick Windows Screenshots without 3rd Party Software:

I have worked in Technical Support for almost 10 years now as a remote Service Desk Agent for major Forunte 500 and Fortune 100 corporations. On a regular basis upon remoting into assets I regularly find people using non-compliant programs like Greenshot and Snagit to capture their screen.

I often find that people are too confused or are not aware of simple default Windows methods to do this, so they rely on a 3rd party application, which I don't agree with personally, as anything like this could pose internal security risks by being installed on Corporate assets.

So to make a long story short, I've had to do the hard thing and put thousands of devices back into complaince by removing thousands of these programs from assets over the years, and regularly I've recieved emails from angry Employees asking why their application was removed and how we expect them to do their jobs without it. These methods allow for easy image editing an annotation in the process.

The simple solution is this:

• All keyboards have a Print Screen button.

• Pressing this button not only captures an image of your screen but also adds this image to the Windows clipboard at the same time.

• Opening MS Paint and simply hitting CTRL+V will paste that image into MS Paint.

• Now simply crop the image as desired and save the image in the format you prefer.

Option #2 Windows Snipping tool:

• Simply press the Windows Key + Shift + S key combination and it will open a Drag and drop interface where you can select part of the screen by holding down the Mouse 1 button and releasing it when you have highlited the selected area.

• Windows will automatically save the image to your computer.
  The directory path of the Temp folder is: C:\Users\*Username*\AppData\Local\Temp

Again these concerns are related to system security in a Corporate workplace, but not installing 3rd party software is always a good move, for security sake even on a personal computer.

I hope someone can find this information useful for work, hobby, and home use! I've used Adobe Photshop to do this since about 2006 but Windows 10 made this process much easier with an upgraded version of MS Paint. Since Windows 11 has released MS Paint is an even more capable tool. Integrate it into your workflow today!

Here's a pretty incredible one.

On iPhones, if you search keywords in iMessage or Photos, images with that text will come back as results.

I will very frequently screenshot web pages or take pics of paper documents in order to read it later, then take the requisite 150 pics of my dogs/cats for the day. So instead of scrolling back and trying to find what it was I wanted to read later, I just search a keyword.

In iMessage, sometimes my parents will get mail for me and send a screenshot. Same principal applies. Even after the conversation continues, rather than scrolling through the convo again, just a quick search brings up that mail.

Super handy.

People might like or hate this one, lol.

You can easily open LinkedIn with one shortcut in Windows

Press: CTRL + Shift + Alt + Windows + L

If you use it a lot, this shortcut should save you a lot of time, or not, either way you are welcome.

The Ultimate Program Killer Shortcut

I don’t see anyone mentioning Alt+F4 in the comments here.

Sure, we can manually move our cursor to the close button at the top right, but if we want to be quick, we can just press Alt+F4. 😆

Ah, yes! Alt+F4 can also be used to quickly shut down your PC or laptop.

Just don’t forget to press Ctrl+S first to save whatever you're working on!

I don’t even know if this counts as a shortcut, it’s just a setting you can have on. But I love that you can update your xbox overnight as long as it’s plugged into a power source 😆 Before I switched the setting on, there were so many annoying times I’d be ready to watch a show or play a game, but it would need an update and I’d have to wait ages for it to complete. But since turning on this setting, it means it updates on its own whenever (as long as it’s plugged into power and switched on! Saves a lot of time 😂