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Today I was going to System Properties with Win+Break and accidentally pressed Win+Print Screen. By doing this, Windows 8 RTM x86 lowered the display brightness for 2 seconds and then returned to normal.

I checked that the printscreen was copied to clipboard by pasting it on Paint, but I didn't notice any difference from a normal printscreen (by pressing only Print Screen button). I also checked that Windows 7 doesn't have the same behavior.

So, is this just a new "animation" for the printscreen process on Windows 8, or does it actually have a functional difference from the traditional method?

Keavon
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Diogo
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  • Not mentioned on this chart: http://windowsteamblog.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Blogs-Components-WeblogFiles/00-00-00-53-48-metablogapi/4667.Keyboard_2D00_shortcuts_2D00_for_2D00_Windows_2D00_8_5F00_5756566F.png – Oliver Salzburg Aug 20 '12 at 14:42

3 Answers3

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It takes and saves the screenshot. It places the saved screenshot into your pictures folder as a PNG.

For reference: Windows 8: Capture Screenshots (en-US)

Oliver Salzburg
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user142485
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    Lol, I didn't know about that. It already worked on Windows 7? – Diogo Aug 20 '12 at 14:43
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    @Diogo: Doesn't seem like this existed in Windows 7. – Oliver Salzburg Aug 20 '12 at 14:44
  • @OliverSalzburg I just checked on my Windows-7 machine and didn't noticed any change on my picture images... I would like to find a reference for this feature on some Windows 8 doc... – Diogo Aug 20 '12 at 14:45
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    @Diogo: Nothing official, but http://www.itworld.com/software/258746/take-screenshots-windows-8 http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2012/04/windows-8-guide-how-to-take-screenshots/ http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-take-a-screenshot-in-windows-8 Everybody but us knows ;D – Oliver Salzburg Aug 20 '12 at 14:47
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    @OliverSalzburg Heh, it's a very nice feature... Now we don't need "Paint" anymore :D – Diogo Aug 20 '12 at 14:49
  • @Diogo you will need the paint at all when you need to edit the shot :D – avirk Aug 20 '12 at 14:52
  • any way to take screenshot of only the focused window and not the whole screen and save it automatically? – Moab Aug 20 '12 at 15:02
  • @Moab I do not think there is as of now. – user142485 Aug 20 '12 at 15:10
  • found some of the new kbrd shorcuts for W8 here...http://www.pcworld.com/article/251022/windows_8_consumer_preview_keyboard_shortcuts.html – Moab Aug 20 '12 at 15:11
  • @Moab I don't have 8 to try it but have you tried `Win` + `Alt` + `PrintScr`? – Scott Chamberlain Oct 17 '12 at 22:30
  • @ScottChamberlain yep that was the first thing I tried. – Moab Oct 18 '12 at 01:51
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As Ben and user142485 point out, Win + Print Screen takes a screenshot, dims the screen to let you know something happened, and saves a .png file to your pictures. This is an enhanced version of the screenshot functionality that has been in Windows going back to at least Windows 95. It might have even been in Microsoft Bob or Me, but thank goodness I never had the chance to find out. Good-bye Paint, or Gimp, or whatever else you used to paste the screen shot into before saving.

Curiously, Alt + Print Screen, which has also been around for just as long, continues to behave the way it did in previous versions of Windows. It captures a screen shot of the active window. However, the screen doesn't dim, and the screen shot is NOT saved to your pictures, so you'll need to continue to use Paint in this scenario.

Jon Crowell
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    I'm not sure if my keyboard doesn't support the simultaneous presses of `Alt`+`Win`+`Print Screen` or if windows doesn't support it. But that combination would be **very** useful! – Jochem Kuijpers Nov 05 '13 at 19:44
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To add to the other answer; I suppose it lowers the brightness to let you know a screen shot just occurred, just like on an iPhone, or when a photo is captured from Photo Booth on a MacBook.

Ben
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