Windows 11 - Snipping Tool issue with multiple monitors with different Scale Settings

Anonymous
2022-11-15T15:34:32+00:00

On Windows 11, if you have multiple monitors with different scale settings and resolutions, the snipping tool doesn't work properly. What happens is the smallest monitor's resolution determines what portion of the other monitors can be snipped. For example, I have three monitors on my Surface Laptop 4, the primary is 2496 x 1664 and is set to 150%. The second is 1920 x 1080 and at 100%. Third is 3440 x 1440 at 100%. When I hit print screen, it only greys out a portion of the first and third monitor. And the second isn't even greyed out at all. I've determined that if I put the all the monitors at the same scale, say 100%, the snipping tool works fine. It's only when one of them is different that the snipping tool doesn't work. Also, it doesn't matter if it's three monitors. This happens to me when I have only two monitors connected. I'm just using my current setup as an example.

This has been a problem since Windows 11 was released.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Display and graphics

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Anonymous
2023-10-10T02:42:43+00:00

I might have found a quick fix to this issue. I just 'repair' and 'reset' my 'Snipping Tool', and now it can screenshot the entire screen correctly.

Apps>Installed Apps>Snipping Tool

Under Reset, Use the 'Reset" and 'Repair'.

Hope it helps.

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-07-12T08:39:13+00:00

    I have the same issue - totally regretting upgrading to win11. Used the snip a lot in win 10 and now its useless.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-07-12T09:44:20+00:00

    Hi all,

    This is a high impact issue that surely has a low effort solution. It baffles me that this still isn't fixed after almost a year and we've got to rely on workarounds.

    Fix:

    I have raised a bug report for this on the feedback Hub at https://aka.ms/AAljizf -- Please go and upvote it.

    Workarounds:

    The following are the suggested workarounds to the issue, choose at your will:

    1. Make your laptop display your 'main display'. i.e. do not make external display main display.

    In order to not lose the taskbar on your primary display. Go to settings > Personalisation > Taskbar and select 'Show my taskbar on all displays'

    1. Set all screens to the same 'Scale' in Settings > System > Display

    I did not do this because it made text on my laptop screen tiny. Writing was illegible.

    1. Download the pre-windows 11 version of the snipping tool:
      https://www.tecklyfe.com/how-to-restore-old-snipping-tool-in-windows-11/

    I've not tested this but others have had success with this.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-07-14T03:39:37+00:00

    I have encountered a super weird interaction between this tool and the Feedback tool, it appears that if you are recording your screen using the "Recreate my problem" functionality, the tool works exactly as expected.

    Looking at the screenshots that the feedback tool creates, it seems that it does something with resolutions to make multiple screens into one large screen?

    Can someone sanity check this for me? I've done this a couple different times with a >90% success rate.

    As an aside (and to pour salt in the wound IMO), it looks like the recording tool built in to snip tool has no problem figuring out how to fully include both screens. We can hope (?) that this means that any possible fix would be as simple as porting this portion of the code over to the older screenshot part of the snipping tool but (if current indicators are anything to go by,) we will probably be waiting for this for a while :/

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