Weird problem - anyone else have this happen?

Okay, I just noticed this last night, but when I hit 'print screen' to capture a screen shot and then went to Paint and pasted, I ended up with a black screen - no matter if I clicked on 'paste' or hit ctrl+V. I tired to past in Word, and got the same thing, a black box. I tired using the print screen button outside of COH, and it worked fine, it just seems to be when I try to capture a screen shot ingame.

On my old system (XP) I could handle screen shots from COH fine, could it be that I'm now in Window's 7 - and using Win7's Paint program - that's causing the problem?

Its a problem with Vista, and apparently Win7 also. Look here, you can try using the snipping tool.

Thanks, I'll try that later. Also, I thought to look in my COH program folder, and found the screen shots I did last night in there. (It still wouldn't have helped me, as I was trying to take screen shots of my power trays and enhancements in order to do a respec - a cheap and easy way I found to do so, as opposed to writing everything down beforehand. In the end, I just did the respec blind - thank goodness I have a good enough memory to remmber some of the more unique enhancement placements, and that there wern't too many to deal with.)

Not sure if it will work in Win7, but one workaround I've seen useful in other OS's is that you have to have a program other than CoH have the focus. Personally, I run CoH in windowed mode and I have WinAmp loaded at all times. Minimized, WinAmp takes up like 10x150 pixels at the top of the screen. If I give that program the focus, I've been able to use multiple screen capture utilities with no issue.

You have 2 options:

1.) Disable Windows 7's UAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control this can be done by pressing the Windows Key + R typing msconfig clicking the tools tab, and then clicking on Change UAC settings, click launch and drag the slider all the way down.

2.) you can try to run City of Heroes, and Paint as Admin. you can do this by right clicking on paint, and clicking Run As Administrator, same with CoH.


Personaly I HATE the UAC (yeah Bold, Underline, AND italicized!) and the first thing I do is disable the UAC, and run a AV program.

you are typing /screenshotui 1 beforehand?
That should take a screenshot of whatever is actually displayed on the screen, rather than just the game world.

I gave myself flexibilty for my screen captures. I use the PrtScr for capturing shots with no UI. I also downloaded the last free FastStone Capture program (5.3)..it sits in my Quickstart taskbar and is not running till I click it. (I run the game in windowed mode, so I can access stuff while I play.) FastStone Capture is awesome. You can set it to catch the entire window or a freehand rectangle. Very easy and straightforward...name your pic, then send it to whatever folder you want. I use it for more than CoH, but it's great for getting pics of the tailor, the splash screens etc.
After 5.3, they started charging for the program. This version does everything I need and is free.
FastStone Capture-5.3 free version

Well, if I can use it for other stuff, then it should be a good tool alongside IrfanView, ACDSee, and Paint. I've just DL'd it, and I'll see how it works - once I finally get in after applying I19. (Good thing it's laundry day, so I'm not twiddling my thumbs while it does.)

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

Still didn't work, with /screenshotui set at both 0 and 1. I'm still getting nothing but a black screen when I try taking a screen capture of the enhancement slots management screen.

Guess Microsoft forgot to fix their little oppsie there from Vista when they finished 7. (Typical...fix or improve one thing, break three others.)

It's not Microsoft's fault that a game that wasn't programmed by Microsoft doesn't play well with their screen capture utility.

Regardless, do this:

1) Open an MS Paint window (or anything that doesn't take a lot of resources and can be moved around the screen). Drag it down so it's hanging off the bottom of your screen, but you can still reach the title bar.

2) Open your City of Heroes program and go to whatever you want to take a screenshot of.

3) Hit Alt+Tab to go to your alternate window and hit the Print Screen button.

4) Bring your MS Paint window up and paste whatever you took a snapshot of in the window.

You may have to use a non-Aero theme, at least temporarily, in order to take these screenshots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Thanks. Yep, it worked - and I'm headdesking here for being so stupid as to not think of that. And I had to do it 4 times to get everything in the 3rd column there included.

Or you now use the Titan Sentinal from Titan Network to export your current build into Mids builder and even save it. Im on my iPhone or I'd add links but the should be a short Google away.