Windows 10 Tip: How To Take Screenshot of Lock Screen and Login Screen

Pretty much all screenshot tools only work on the desktop, meaning only when you are logged in. You can’t do much when you are at Lock Screen or Login Screen. Here is a cool tip shared by AddictiveTips that lets you do the screenshot of your Lock Screen as well as the Login Screen.

Screenshot Lock Screen

Let’s press Win + L to lock your screen first. When you are on the Lock Screen, simply press Print Screen (PrtScr) key which copies the whole lock screen into the clipboard.

Now unlock the screen and back to the desktop. Launch the Paint app or any photo editing tool or screenshot app and paste the screenshot from the clipboard to the app.

It’s surprisingly easy but only until you know it.

Screenshot Login Screen

Unfortunately, the same trick doesn’t apply when you are on the Login Screen. We will need a registry tweak to add the Snipping Tool as the Ease of Access button to do the job.

Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following location:

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

Create a new Key called utilman.exe on the left panel and a new String value called Debugger at the right panel. Then set the path of the snipping tool (see below) as the value of the string.

C:\Windows\System32\SnippingTool.exe

Now let’s get to the Login Screen. Click the Ease of Access button, the one next to the Power button at the bottom right corner of the screen. The snipping tool pops up. Take the screenshot of the Login Screen and click Copy button to copy it to the clipboard. You won’t be able to save the screenshot you just took, but you can still use Clipboard as your middle man to transfer the content.

Log back to your desktop, launch Paint app or any other photo editing or screenshot app you use and paste it.