On 26 Jul 2018 10:32:36 GMT, Paul wrote:

Snippingtool is for recording the screen.

Thank Paul, for offering helpful advice.

I should have been clear that what I really want is to disable the Start
Menu from coming up when I press the Windows key.

If the screenshot is the *only* thing that I want, there are *plenty* of
ways to take a screenshot, e.g., Irfanview freeware already has
*everything* anyone could want to capture screenshots directly to a file.

What I really want is to disable the Windows key from bringing up the Start
Menu.

I keep SnippingTool pinned to the Task Bar.
I keep Irfanview pinned to the task bar.

In addition, if you're preparing tutorial material,
and expect to be shooting 30+ pictures, you can use
FFMPEG as a screen recorder. Or for that matter,
any other screen recorder that doesn't deliver
adware when you install it.

I do create tutorials all day every day, which is mostly why I capture
screenshots, and where I sometimes record video, but not that often simply
because it's harder to upload video to registration-free sites (for privacy
reasons).

It has been so long since I recorded screen video that I forgot what
GUI-based programs I used, offhand, where I always seek the canonical best
freeware for any task - so it's good that you recommend ffmpeg on the
command line, where the youtube download conversions call the fmpeg
automatically from the current directory, so we all already have ffmpeg
installed.

Looking at my youtube-dl log file, here's where my ffmpeg came from:
http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win...n64-static.zip

According to my youtube-dl install log file, that zip contains:
{ffmpeg.exe, ffprobe.exe, & ffplay.exe}

The following command example, puts one frame per
second in your "output_folder". You can bump the
framerate number to 30 in Win10, or 60 in Win8
if you want lots more data. If you have a gutless
computer, using too high a framerate could affect
your work. The mjpeg codec isn't the best, but
it is multithreaded, which is why I like it. The
ringing on sharp edges in the capture, I could
do without, but that's JPG for you.

cd output_folder

C:\FFMPEG\bin\ffmpeg -framerate 1 -f gdigrab -i desktop -f image2 -q:v 1 -c:v mjpeg a%05d.jpg

I'm going to add this to the log file in the ffmpeg folder so that I can
use it in the future. Thanks for increasing our tribal knowledge on
recording screen video.

Newer versions support more file formats, but
introduce other issues. Since I have limited things
I do with it, I keep it just for this particular task.

My rule is to use the *oldest* version of any tool that still works.
(There are reasons for that rule, learned over time, but they vary.)

Video capture aside though, what I really want is to disable the Windows
key from bringing up the Start Menu.