My print screen button doesn't work. It literally does nothing. I would like it to work. Can anyone help me?

And before anyone dares suggest it, pasting into word doesn't do anything, nothing appears in my pictures folder and pressing ctrl, alt or shift and print screen doesn't do anything. THE BUTTON DOES NOTHING!

Seriously I will come round your house and make you play Duke Nukem Forever... FOREVER if anyone so much as hints that I'm doing it wrong. Yes I know I can use a program to take screen shots BUT THE BUTTON DOES NOTHING AND I WANT IT TO WORK!


(You may have notice a little bit of hostility. This may or may not be due to hours of internet frustration)

tried it in paint it should strip out any settings that might be overriding it in word etc?
tried it in safe mode (for same reasons above)?
big one here, if you use something such as an in-game key remap option - ya know those that will let you chose which keys to use, can you remap it to see if the button is being recognised?

Maybe it's your antivirus software, or another program blocking it. I noticed that using neo's safekeys disables print screen, because it has an anti-screen capturing feature.

I have no programs that capture or remap buttons

I've even tried in safe mode. No dice.

My anti-virus is just the Microsoft one.

If I shred my keyboard to pieces and feed it to the nearest Dell or Microsoft employee, would that help?

Try greenshot. The free version of this software has features I can't live without anymore.


(Edit : provided your key works on a mechanical level :)

Have you got the latest driver for your keyboard? If it's some kind of fancy one, it may have been screwed by patch tuesday. If it's not some kind of fancy one, find the drivers anyway.

Ok. I'm a bit calmer now. The keyboard is old but the button physically seems to work. I've just taken off the button and used the rubber end of a pencil to press the button. It still doesn't work.

Well obviously I do. That was frustration talking. I've now entered a zen like state of peace. This worries me.

When I try nothing happens. The key doesn't do anything. It's the only key on the keyboard that doesn't work. I've never really used it before. But it doesn't work. This makes no sense.

Depending on the keyboard, "print-screen" might be a secondary function of that key. Do you have an "Fn" key on the keyboard, and/or does the print screen key say anything in addition to "Print screen" (and "SysRq")?

It just says

Print
Screen
----------
SysRq


I have no function button.

I just found out that the on screen keyboard works, which is something I guess..

just a hint prob dont try to get the 'secondary' function of that key to work if your doing something, im sure its system restart.

ok do you have any details of the keyboard? manufacturer etc?

It's an old Dell keyboard. Just your bog standard cheaper than cheap type.

EDIT: it says L100 on the back.

System request is activated by using alt, and no, it doesn't restart the system. On Windows, it copies the active window to the paste buffer (like print screen does for the whole screen area).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_request