Windows 10 Will Have Screen Recording Tool

Mark Wilson writes: Windows 10 has not even been released yet, but that's a perfect reason to start unearthing a few secrets. Over the coming weeks and months there will undoubtedly be an endless stream of tips, tricks, and tweaks to try out, but how's this for starters? Windows 10 has a secret screen recording tool that can be used to capture on-screen activity as a video file. Taking a static screenshot is very simple. You can either hit the Print Screen key, use the Snipping Tool, or turn to one of the countless screen capture tools out there — many of which are free. When it comes to capturing video, however, it's something of a different story. Before you splash out on a dedicated tool such as Camtasia, you might want to try out Windows 10's hidden tool. It's designed for gamers really, but anyone can use it. The Game bar is a toolbar which Microsoft meant for gamers to use to capture screenshots of their high scores, as well as video footage of their gaming skills. Despite the name, it is not limited to use within games

Comments

Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[ZippyTheChicken]

Yeah who wants to bet this can be activated remotely.... Win10 looks like a real joy.. Mandated Updates No MediaCenter Now this Screen Recording Tool . The Exploits are going to be really interesting I canceled my free Update 2 weeks ago.. not doing it sorry... I actually have a Windows 95 Release Party TShirt I have used MS Products as a Consultant for 25+ years one of the Original TechNet Members Nope not upgrading.. not now anyway .. just getting a little scary out there campers

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you buy your weed? The paranoia is amazing

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

Fair enough... but the world will keep moving regardless... The future isn't in being disconnected, it is in being secure...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you need to bet?? It is GUARANTEED to be remotely activated.

Ever heard the words "Remote Desktop"? It is exactly the same functionality. They are just adding (more like enabling by default) the option to save. Nothing more.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

too damn bad microsoft doesn't care enough to secure their operating system.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[drinkypoo]

in10 looks like a real joy.. Mandated Updates No MediaCenter Now this Screen Recording Tool

Microsoft has long had RDC, and they could read anything important you were doing with your PC (not direct GPU access) anyway if you had it open and you assume they had a back door into it. You're always in the position of having to trust the maker of your OS, unless it's you.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any basis for that belief, other than the slipping of your tinfoil hat?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

If MS shit is actually secure then NSA wouldn't be doing their jobs.

Couple with all the Intel back doors like vPRO/Anti-Theft/AMT/IRIS, hard disk firmware exploits, plus all those UEFI "bugs" that leaves your PC wide open even when the computer is turned off, PC will soon become as insecure as mobiles.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

The random Capitalization makes you Look a little Paranoid Crazy, just to let You know.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's a fair point, but it's also true that as someone reasonably careful about security I have had far, far more downtime over the years due to bad Windows updates than I ever have due to intrusions.

The compulsory updates alone make Windows 10 a non-starter for me, even if I saw anything else that might make me want to upgrade. :-(

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[jader3rd]

Yeah who wants to bet this can be activated remotely....

You wish so badly for this be true.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Joe_Dragon]

by the CIA / FBI / NSA.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Mr. Broken English. I value the opinion of semi-literate people.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[QuietLagoon]

The paranoia is amazing

Considering the exploit record of Microsoft Windows, I'd say his paranoia is quite justified.

.
Indeed, if only Microsoft were as paranoid about people exploiting vulnerability vectors into Windows.......

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Kjella]

Here's a secret for you, they already have a system built in to transmit your desktop to another PC, it's called RDP and been there a while. Being able to record it to disk instead isn't exactly earth shattering. But that aside, this isn't exactly the latest blockbuster movie so what's the hurry? You've got a year and by then we'll have actual facts and experiences. I'll be updating my laptop since it's at 8.1 and it probably can't get any worse while my desktop remains at 7 until further notice.

If Win10 really sucks I'll eventually upgrade (downgrade?) my gaming rig to be a pure "Winsole" machine for gaming but honestly they recovered from Vista so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can recover from Win8 too. It's not like I'm really asking that much, just not fuck up 20 years of the "normal" Win95+ style desktop and I'll be fine. Most of the time I'm not really interacting much with the OS anyway.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[thegarbz]

Yeah who wants to bet this can be activated remotely....

How do you get out of bed in the morning knowing that the NSA is tracking you by satellites and regulating your bowel movements?

But yet aside from your insane fear of being alive. I don't see the problem with mandating updates for home users who need it most, not paying some stupid license fee to kill off a subproduct that borderline no one used, and providing a tool that gamers have been wanting.

Yep what a turd it is going to be.

By the way do you know your ISP recorded you saying this? You may want to burn your cable modem before some foreign gulag come for you.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[bloodhawk]

yep, better rip that t shirt off and replace it with your tin foil hat. If they wanted to remotely monitor you they have had the ability to do that for the last 2 decades, nothing really new here except a usable interface for users. The forced updates is only for home edition, which in my opinion is a long overdue addition, anyone serious about their IT setup is either not using windows or at least not using home edition.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Blaskowicz]

They'll creatively find a way to let you have a genuine, activated supported Windows after you install a warez Windows 10 pro from a random torrent site.

I first read your first sentence the other way around : I had far more downtime due to intrusions than to Windows updates. The one that bit me was upgrading to Internet Explorer 6 on a Windows 98SE installation, which made the OS completely unusable (no big deal as I was used to boot under DOS, load smartdrv and run the setup from D:\WIN98 on the other hard drive)
Now in the XP days I always disabled the updates (and ran without antivirus too) and ran as admin, security was assured by using firefox, being behind a router and disabling all autorun/autoplay. That crumbled down precisely in the year 2009 for me. Now it's do all updates, or disable/remove networking (and don't plug untrusted USB drive or hard drive)

If you're an update refuznik, you should like Linux Mint though : updates are easy, conservative, optional, vetted (run "level" 1, 2 and 3 while ignoring 4 and 5 as per default, or do something else ; right click on a package to put into the "upgrade ignore list")

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[bloodhawk]

Additional: I do agree though that removing media center was a dick move. One that seems idiotic given the small devices and the increasingly common appearance of computers in the living room.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason to stop using say windows 7 and it's media center. It's going to continue to be updated for years so stop whinny about no media center or go download the opensource or freeware media center applications.

Same old news with some people. If Microsoft includes this or that software then they are trying to create a monopoly and their software is feature bloated. If Microsoft doesn't include this or that then they are becoming jerks because their old software did and they are just trying to screw over the little guy.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you aren't smart enough to make the their software more secure. I find it very easy to keep my family from getting malware and junk by teaching my family what to look for and to make sure they keep their software up to date. If the program says it needs an update then do it. If a website tells you to update by running this application then don't do it and come ask me.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Blackberry

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[QuietLagoon]

and which OS platform doesn't have a list of exploits and vulnerabilities as long as an elephants trunk over the last decade?

The current thread is about Windows, and that is why I mentioned Windows. You can call it "born for prejudice or ignorance". I prefer to call it "staying on topic".

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[penguinoid]

Where do you buy your weed? The paranoia is amazing

Why? Are you going to set up a sting operation? Admit it, you're working for ** "THEM" **!

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why people think this sort of thing doesn't happen. It has been *publicly disclosed* that this level of spying takes place. The NSA was caught red-handed putting spyware in the firmware of routers being sent overseas...why in the world wouldn't they partner with Microsoft to inject spying software into Windows?

They have means, motive, opportunity, and they think that spying on everyone is the morally *appropriate* thing to do!

Yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, otherwise intelligent people grin and act condescending...as if this is conspiracy lunacy. They think that this sort of thing is evil, and therefore the authorities won't do it. Why in the world would anyone think that?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Alien1024]

What? +1 Interesting?

Don't know what parent means by "Remote Desktop" (RDS?), but it almost certainly has nothing to do with screen recording.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[rtb61]

So your saying the built in screen recording tool is not the perfect app for use with the NSA back door. It really does make a lot more sense to build in the tools to be exploited than to try to sneak past the larger download to add in the required privacy invasive software. So how much were M$ paid to bundle it or did they do if for free, keeping in mind how greedy they are, I could not see them doing it for free. So can on can not the tool be completely uninstalled, actually deleted and not present at all and can upgrade be set to manual.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

> regulating your bowel movements?

Man, I wish the NSA could do this...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

"Considering the exploit record of Microsoft Windows, I'd say his paranoia is quite justified."

This. Forget microsoft and law enforcement making use of this tool remotely - the real scary shit happens when malware pops up looking to exploit this.

It WILL happen. With microsoft's track record, this is not a question of IF but WHEN

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Alien1024]

Nitpick: you mean Remote Assistance, not RDC.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Trax3001BBS]

Yeah who wants to bet this can be activated remotely....
Win10 looks like a real joy.. Mandated Updates
No MediaCenter
Now this Screen Recording Tool
.
The Exploits are going to be really interesting

Windows screen capture, don't need it, being a gamer I've always had Fraps at the press of a button. I do wonder how this will affect alt+prtscr (only the selected window). As far as I'm aware Fraps has never been exploited. But there is no indication it's recording and I have many games recorded because of that, only when I get an out of disk space do I clue in.

Yet on the other hand, I get some of my better (Youtubeable) selections when reviewing what I hadn't intended to capture.

I actually have a Windows 95 Release Party TShirt

I LOL'd, just yesterday I found and wore my "The ProWriter cometh" tee shirt, (It's been many many years since I have) it came with the very first printer I purchased (dot matrix).

Nope not upgrading.. not now anyway

I'm in the same boat; upgrade, why? All of these updates to make the change from 7 (in my case) to 10 easier - that's just marketing. I plan on buying or other the stand alone CD as I always have. I figure past practice has shown a version updated OS is just a problem, not to mention windows need of a clean install of the OS every 6 months (Win7 has been different, I haven't needed to reinstall yet).

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Trax3001BBS]

The paranoia is amazing

Considering the exploit record of Microsoft Windows, I'd say his paranoia is quite justified.

.

Indeed, if only Microsoft were as paranoid about people exploiting vulnerability vectors into Windows.......

Isn't that something? It should be easy enough to check for, yet buffer overflows are still very common.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[westlake]

You're always in the position of having to trust the maker of your OS, unless it's you.

Trust no one.

There can be nothing more difficult to see than the flaws in your own work.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Trax3001BBS]

Additional: I do agree though that removing media center was a dick move. One that seems idiotic given the small devices and the increasingly common appearance of computers in the living room.

Never used Windows media center, had used the PS3 till it quit, now I use a spare laptop and VLC connected to the HDTV, which I control with an very old trackmouse (Turbo Mouse Pro Wireless). The distance the mouse works across is really what makes it all work out. Sure beats streaming to the PS3.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[savuporo]

uItron doesn't have any exploits that come to mind. neither does HURD

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why people think this sort of thing doesn't happen. It has been *publicly disclosed* that this level of spying takes place. The NSA was caught red-handed putting spyware in the firmware of routers being sent overseas...why in the world wouldn't they partner with Microsoft to inject spying software into Windows?

They have means, motive, opportunity, and they think that spying on everyone is the morally *appropriate* thing to do!

Yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, otherwise intelligent people grin and act condescending...as if this is conspiracy lunacy. They think that this sort of thing is evil, and therefore the authorities won't do it. Why in the world would anyone think that?

Very sadly, no amount of facts and reasoning will convince someone who simply does not want to believe that such a thing could actually happen. This is the very same force that retards much otherwise attainable progress.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[wierd_w]

Blocking Windows Update at the firewall, then running your own windows update local server with vetted updates would work around the problem.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

So your saying the built in screen recording tool is not the perfect app for use with the NSA back door.

What NSA backdoor? Billions of systems use Windows (including government ones) and still nobody can actually identify this supposed "backdoor" in the product. The same crap was being pandered to the tinfoil hat crowd back in the late 90s and they lapped it up, then came the NT4.0 (and 2000) sourcecode leaks and lo and behold no backdoor to be found.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[exomondo]

It WILL happen. With microsoft's track record, this is not a question of IF but WHEN

They've had remote access tools built into the operating system for years, heard of Remote Desktop? Why would they need a screen recording tool if they already had remote desktop?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[cavreader]

Putting spyware in routers going overseas, and the key word here is overseas, is what a foreign intelligence service does to fulfill the mandate of their agencies. Clandestine foreign security and intelligence agencies across the world return the favor by doing everything they can possibly do to collect military, political, and industrial information from the US. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights do not come into play outside of US sovereign territory. And no one has ever found any government mandated back doors in Windows and that is not from a lack of people trying. And I think the NSA should be disbanded as soon as every other foreign intelligence service in the world does the same thing. But we would probably still have to maintain some type of foreign intelligence service just to make sure the other security services were actually disbanded.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[circletimessquare]

there's gullibility, where someone trusts people they shouldn't

there's shrewdness, where someone will intelligently verify someone before gradually trusting them

then there's a sort of toxic level of distrust which is not intelligent and is just as hobbling to your life as gullibility. even though those with toxic levels of distrust see themselves as somehow more intelligent than the cluelessly naive and gullible, they aren't really, they are the same level of foolishness which is unintelligent and ruins your life

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

The exploit record of Microsoft Windows is extensive because it has the largest install base. Funny... I didn't hear all this paranoia when Remote Desktop was introduced. Seems the trolls are getting more and more desperate.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[MobSwatter]

So your saying the built in screen recording tool is not the perfect app for use with the NSA back door.

What NSA backdoor? Billions of systems use Windows (including government ones) and still nobody can actually identify this supposed "backdoor" in the product. The same crap was being pandered to the tinfoil hat crowd back in the late 90s and they lapped it up, then came the NT4.0 (and 2000) sourcecode leaks and lo and behold no backdoor to be found.

The problem remains in the number of attack vectors Windows has always had, in fact one could venture to say that Windows is the most powerful Trojan horse ever created and with a market share that has always been a high value target. The NSA wouldn't have to work too hard to bug windows itself let alone the driver level if tommy 10 y/o script kiddy can work it like warm butter.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Billly Gates]

The paranoia is amazing

Considering the exploit record of Microsoft Windows, I'd say his paranoia is quite justified.

.

Indeed, if only Microsoft were as paranoid about people exploiting vulnerability vectors into Windows.......

As unpopular as my post is going to get on such an anti MS and pro Linux site I have to say MS really did do a good job after the security Memo from 2004 starting with Vista in terms of security. I would rank it as one of the most secure operating systems behind OpenBSD and MVS as number 3.

Modern Windows has all the apis go through ACL to prevent bypasses that explains UAC prompts in Vista. It also now randomizes data in the ram to prevent injections via ASLR. It has a signed bootloader to prevent rootkits. It can now accurately separate storage vs execution data to prevent buffer overflows. It has kernel level sandboxing with low-rights mode which Chrome and IE use for default which severely limit FS and services access. Windows Server can be powershell only which can limit 90% of the exploits with GDI and excess services that no longer need to be patched and so on.

All the exploits you read are from Adobe and Java which due to XP compatibility can't use modern features such as low-rights mode due to people not wanting to change.

I am not saying it is an amazing OS but it is not WIndows 98 anymore where pointers and crashes were all over and all you had to do was put your code in a ram address where a known pointer would look and BAM 0wned!

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Billly Gates]

WinRM now and server manager in 2012 R2 can do many remote functions without RDP sessions

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

The compulsory updates alone make Windows 10 a non-starter for me, even if I saw anything else that might make me want to upgrade. :-(

So get Windows 10 Pro, and then they aren't compulsory...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Forever Wondering]

Isn't that something? It should be easy enough to check for, yet buffer overflows are still very common.

Microsoft came up with an API to handle buffer overflows that take buffer descriptors [that have base/end/length] instead of mere pointers (e.g. memcpy --> memcpy_safe).

But, trying to retrofit that over a code base of tens of millions of lines of code isn't easy and has it's own set of problems for QA'ing the result. For example, suppose you do a retrofit for certain code sections, do a full QA. You may break every system in the world because your QA suite missed something. With Win10, hopefully, automatic rollback on recent changes will be part of the newer "continuous update" model. With that, the risk of adding some additional checking will be smaller, so MS will be encouraged to do more code review and cleanup.

Further, WinX, by architectural design and needless complexity, has many more avenues of attack than Unix/Linux/*BSD POSIX systems. Buffer overflow is but one, and it's the easiest to spot in a code review.

Case in point: Stuxnet

Before getting to the centrifuge controllers, stuxnet had to penetrate windows. It did so by putting attack code in a printer font. The WinX print spooler [inside the kernel] executed code in user space memory from ring 0. This is bad design for two reasons:
(1) putting a print spooler in the kernel at all [on all other above systems, the spooler is just a utility].
(2) Executing any code from user space memory by the kernel running at ring 0 [This is architecturally impossible by the other OSes]

This is [very old] legacy code from the MS/DOS days when there was no supervisor/user mode distinction [on an 8086]. In other words, they never bothered to change this in 20+ years. Contrast this to the fact that most Unixes back then used mc68000's which came out at the same time and did have supervisor/user modes baked into the hardware. None of the POSIX based systems have any way at all for the kernel to do what WinX was doing [the calldown to user space].

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Those goalposts won't move themselves.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[drinkypoo]

Nitpick: you mean Remote Assistance, not RDC.

Don't tell me what I mean, especially when you're wrong: I mean RDC. RA is powered by RDC.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Hadlock]

I think you mean the memo from 2002, and so others can find it, here's a link to it.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I second the LinuxMint option. I am a fan. I call it Linux for Retards. It suits me well. It has its share of bugs but nothing major. Once in a while it locks up but not often and you can restart Cinnamon with CTRL + F2 (and not lose work) if that happens. I will likely keep my MSDN subscription but I do not know how much I will use Windows 10. I just do not find any compelling reasons to do so other than for development playing around.

KGIII (hit the post limit of 50 again, arbitrary and silly and can not be expanded even with excellent karma)

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I do! I want to bet. $1000 in escrow and I will give you one year to prove your case.

This is KGIII but the silly 50 post limit, even with excellent karma, is not to be breeched. We can go higher than $1000 if you want. I am assuming you mean activated remotely without your permission - directly. Not that you can have something like realVNC installed and invite someone to do it or have that exploited and do it. It has to be the service itself that is activated remotely.

I will take that bet just because I think I have excellent odds of winning. You do not think so. Here is your chance to actually put your money where your mouth is. Any reasonable and reliable escrow service of your choosing will suit me fine. If you (or I) withdraw from the bet early the penalty is 50% of the stake. Dollars are USD. As soon as you put your portion of the stake up I will even pay for a lawyer to write up the details and have them faxed to you for a signature. I will bet up to $10,000 if you would like the chance to make more money.

I can be reached at a spam email address of webslaver (at) hotmail (dot) com and I welcome the opportunity to do business with you.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop being such a nut. There is a ton of screen capture software installed everywhere. Take Nvidia for example, or steam. If they have access to your computer, having your screen captured is the least of your problems.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[GigaplexNZ]

They are still compulsory, eventually. You only get to delay the upgrade.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[benjymouse]

I don't understand why people think this sort of thing doesn't happen. It has been *publicly disclosed* that this level of spying takes place. The NSA was caught red-handed putting spyware in the firmware of routers being sent overseas...why in the world wouldn't they partner with Microsoft to inject spying software into Windows?

It would be naïve to think that NSA do not try something like this. But what would Microsoft gain? They would risk their entire revenue, for what? Favors of the NSA? Microsoft - and any other vendor with business in US - will have to comply with lawful orders. Unfortunately, FISA decisions are not public. But Red Hat or any other vendors would have to comply with the same FISA orders.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Patrix]

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights do not come into play outside of US sovereign territory.

It does not come into play much inside the US territory, either, if the last few years of leaks and news are any indication.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[ravenshrike]

The question is whether there is an obvious non-removable transparent indicator that the system is running. If yes, then there is little to no threat of the system being used by malware/spyware. If no, then sooner or later it will be used as such.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA was caught red-handed putting spyware in the firmware of routers being sent overseas...why in the world wouldn't they partner with Microsoft to inject spying software into Windows?

Honesty, I also have my suspicions that this has something to do with Truecrypt's sudden "warning" and abandonment: I'm willing to bet Windows 8 and later automatically detect and 'intercept' Truecrypt's keys, due to to some secret NSA partnering.

(Anonymous for a reason.)

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

afaik, supervisor mode wasnt added until 68030 or 40?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you please kill yourself so we don't have to waste our time shaking our heads at your stupidity?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[DoofusOfDeath]

You're always in the position of having to trust the maker of your OS, unless it's you.

More like, especially if it's me. I've seen the way I code.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Blaskowicz]

It's more known as RDS (S for "service"), RDC being the name they now give for the client.
I thought you were talking about RPC first :) (Remote Procedure Call)

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

But seriously, can I has your stuff? Also, mind the door.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh Windows has had Remote Desktop Protocol for fourteen years now and we haven't been seeing any "strangers take over ur puter ZOMFG!" going on now have we?

Lets be clear all this is doing is taking the RDP that has been there since WinXP and saving to file instead of sending to another PC, that's it, that is all its doing. RDP has been around for ages, is solid, and nobody has been complaining about it, in fact many shops like mine use it every day to help customers via remote assistance .

So I really don't see how taking a fourteen year old protocol and giving it a save to file option is gonna magically make computers into two way TVs ala 1984.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that the m$-spy-agency machine is getting more desperate.

FTFY

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

uItron doesn't have any exploits that come to mind. neither does HURD

Let's not start dick-measuring with solutions that border between useless and worthless for the average consumer, as it tends to make the conversation pointless.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Opportunist]

Because a constant interactive connection is a tad bit obvious?

But sending some recordings while you're, let's say, downloading updates...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Opportunist]

Trust is something that is gained hard and easily lost.

Give me one good reason why I should assume that MS has the security of my data in mind and would not instantly and without thinking twice hand it over to anyone willing to throw money or the book at them.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

And then stream it back, a few bits at a time, via stegonographic Windows Update requests. Unless you've airgapped the machine, in which case they key is also likely sprayed across some 'unusued' blocks on your NTFS.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Opportunist]

The difference is how easily it can be avoided and spotted.

A remote desktop connection is easily to spot and avoid. Even despite the horrible mess the MS RDP is from a security point of view. For a RD connection, I first of all have to reach your computer from the outside world. Meaning, I have to initiate the connection. Something that already fails to work on most private setups, let alone corporate networks. I would usually die no later than the router (in a private setup) or a relevant firewall (in a corporate one).

Assuming that I somehow manage to actually get a connection going, this connection is interactive. I would have to stay connected for as long as I wish to view the attacked computer. Something that could probably be tricky when sensitive data is being manipulated, a time when probably additional care is taken to ensure only valid and known connections are allowed.

All in all a scenario that needs very sloppy security on the attacked end.

Compare that to an attack where I record what I wish to see (with a planted trojan, something that probably would have to exist for the former attack to work as well since RDP, despite its insecurities, is usually not configured to be free for all). It would start recording when a certain tool is being run or a certain webpage is being viewed in a browser. This recording is then stored in a "secret" location, most likely somewhere in the user's documents or his %appdata% folder where he has read/write access without elevated privileges, which is also something you cannot easily deactivate due to programs needing to write data in those areas constantly.

The transfer happens when the user next time connects to some server I either control or when I can estimate that opening a connection to my C&C server would go unnoticed (like when he is doing an update for his system or programs, any time large amounts of data are being transferred qualifies). Preferably of course when he is sending bulk data but in general as long as I can somehow assume that security is not as tight as during the critical use (i.e. what I wanted to record) would do.

That's what makes the mess more dangerous.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Opportunist]

No, he isn't.

At least I've never seen him at any meeting.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Google are the ones who accepted bribes from the NSA in exchange for providing user data. Google are the ones who have based their entire company on spying on you, selling your information and throwing advertising in your face.

Unlike Google, Microsoft has real, actual products that billions of people buy all over the world. They don't need to harvest user info.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Black LED]

Not to mention that Windows has long had the ability to capture the screen by pressing PrtScr to save the screen to the clipboard and in Windows 8 you can press Win+PrtScr to write out the screen directly to an image file.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yes they are, at least as currently announced. Unlike Home, with Pro you get to delay updates for a few months if you want by following the Current Branch for Business, but beyond that, if you don't install all the updates then you lose security updates too.

You will need the Enterprise edition if you just want to apply security updates and not be forced to update other parts of the system at all.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there was no comments identifying tbe backdoor code? You're either a shill or a dumbass. Backdoors can be a lot of things, including hard to identify unpatched "bugs". Whatever it is, it won't be obvious even to a goid coder. That's kind of the point.

The use of 'tinfoil hat' and other ad hominem slurs just doesn't work anymore given all we now know about the NSA's activities and admittedly rather clever exploits like intentionally suggesting complications and weaknesses be put into standards, or how somehow a major security company ends up using a known weak algorithm as the default setting in their flagship product for no apparent reason. No, we all just imagined all that, right?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[AmiMoJo]

The NSA wouldn't bother back-dooring individual tools. They would just have MS insert a backdoor into the kernel and 0wn the entire machine that way. Then they can run their own screen capture code, as well as any other arbitrary code they like.

Why pay for multiple backdoors when a single one will work better anyway?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

Perhaps, but my point was that Pro doesn't require you install anything, you can remain completely plain launch vanilla if you want.

Now WHY you would want to, I don't know... that is as foolish as remaining on launch XP, and even those people still using XP are likely not doing that either...

To continue getting security updates to XP, you long ago had to be on at least SP2, so this isn't a "new thing" to Windows.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[drinkypoo]

More like, especially if it's me. I've seen the way I code.

Also, to be fair, one should not forget that hand-coded OS written by a schizophrenic. Presumably, he also has to watch out to make sure he's not out to get him.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

So your saying the built in screen recording tool is not the perfect app for use with the NSA back door.

What NSA backdoor? Billions of systems use Windows (including government ones) and still nobody can actually identify this supposed "backdoor" in the product. The same crap was being pandered to the tinfoil hat crowd back in the late 90s and they lapped it up, then came the NT4.0 (and 2000) sourcecode leaks and lo and behold no backdoor to be found.

The problem comes from using the word "backdoor" in the singular.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still loudly challenge the government if you feel your rights have been violated. The Constitution and Bill of Rights have been continually challenged and reinterpreted since their inception. They are works in progress that have required constant scrutiny and revaluation to keep up with changes in society. The majority of the leaks and news items have been about what the government COULD do because of their data collection and tracking capabilities. And if you are going to stand in the street making accusations about your rights being violated you need to provide some actual details to support this claim and demonstrate the harm these rights violations have inflicted upon you. Rights are in place to protect citizens from the government. When claiming your rights were violated a crucial piece of information needed in your argument is a description of the harm inflicted upon you because of these violations of your rights. The US Supreme Court has the power to strike down any law or act invoked by the Legislative branch of government and have done so many times. However, the SC cannot do anything until someone challenges the law or act in a court of law.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[rubycodez]

You are ignorant, consult your local search engine for various RDP exploits. You microsoft shill-boys are indeed the loyal blind

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Well, one unwelcome trend more recently is for software updates that actually remove or break functionality, or indeed the entire system. This has certainly happened several times with Windows updates, and other vendors have screwed up similarly (ask anyone who was using -- or rather, trying to use -- Creative Cloud a few weeks ago).

Another unwelcome trend is abusing the software update process to push entirely separate software. Windows update has been trying to get me to install various other Microsoft products for some time, and of course there was the now-infamous Windows 10 update nag screen a few weeks ago.

If you want to be taken seriously as an OS provider, you have to provide security updates for a reasonable period after someone installs your system, but everything else can and should be separate. They clearly can do it, because the Enterprise edition will.

However, given that Microsoft aren't making any money directly on providing the updates, not even to Windows 10 itself, and their stated aim is to monetize the surrounding ecosystem in the future instead, they have every incentive to lock as many people as they can into this compulsory update cycle and then start using the mechanism to promote or outright install new software or services that do make them money at your expense. And you consented, remember?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[dave420]

It's not the perfect app, though, as everyone knows it's there. There is no such thing as the perfect app, but perfect backdoor (through which actors put their unknown malicious app). If this hypothetical backdoor exists (still waiting for concrete evidence of that, by the way), then the NSA would simply use it to install their own screen-recording software, and get your goodies that way.

Come on, you can do better. I know bashing Microsoft is fun, but when you have to resort to childish hypothetical situations to bash them, you end up bashing yourself instead.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[dave420]

... is also a "tad bit obvious", as every system reporting tool will gladly show you that your screen recording software is chewing up resources for no apparent reason. If the NSA wanted in to your machine they'd use a backdoor or exploit to gain access, then install their own software which you'd not recognise.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[dave420]

Then they've lost your trust. I'm sure they're gutted. The rest of the world moves on...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[dave420]

Calm down, Sparky! If MS or the NSA wanted to fuck with your computer, they'd use a sneaky backdoor/exploit into your system and then run whatever tools they wanted to, which would not include well-known tools, as they are easy to spot. You seem to be more paranoid than sensible.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC to preserve mods.

Windows screen capture, don't need it, being a gamer I've always had Fraps at the press of a button. I do wonder how this will affect alt+prtscr (only the selected window). As far as I'm aware Fraps has never been exploited. But there is no indication it's recording and I have many games recorded because of that, only when I get an out of disk space do I clue in.

Yet on the other hand, I get some of my better (Youtubeable) selections when reviewing what I hadn't intended to capture.

If you are displaying your FPS the numbers display in yellow. If you're recording they display in red. So I assume you're not displaying FPS to run into that issue.

I'm in the same boat; upgrade, why? All of these updates to make the change from 7 (in my case) to 10 easier - that's just marketing. I plan on buying or other the stand alone CD as I always have. I figure past practice has shown a version updated OS is just a problem, not to mention windows need of a clean install of the OS every 6 months (Win7 has been different, I haven't needed to reinstall yet).

Not to play fanboy here, I am certainly not, but version upgrades have become a whole lot better than the nightmare they used to be. Going from 7 or 8 to 10 should be seamless for 99.9% of folks. I personally prefer fresh installs as well, just throwing that out there.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[circletimessquare]

your problem seems to be garden variety drama queen

i was actually referring to the wackjobs who are borderline paranoid schizophrenics

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[MobSwatter]

too damn bad microsoft doesn't care enough to secure their operating system.

The insecurity isn't just in the OS, it is keeping everything that is running secure. This means every hardware manufacturer that has a driver that runs on the system account must be secured. MS did care to make the effort with WHQL in peer reviewing of hardware drivers, but that was a tall order considering all the hardware vendors out there. Thinking along the lines of what the NSA did to a certain random number generator, one should realize just how tall of an order that actually is beyond that is actually running against the grain of what is happening overall to the reasonable expectation of privacy in the US. I don't think they would go as far as they did on JFK along these lines but history certainly dictates that one cannot put it past them.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to break it to you, but if you are worried about screen capture that ship sailed a long time ago along with RDP.

The only difference here is the ability to save the stream to disk... A feature that would have been simple enough to just capture the RDP stream before.

And RDP is actually designed to be remotely accessed.

You are pretty bad at this paranoia thing.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

They do if they want to have continued growth ...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the humor of a Linux zealot throwing around the term "shill-boys". Still, his point stands. The world didn't meltdown from the "various RDP exploits" you're worried about.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing scary about this. It's for recording games and posting videos of them online.

Paranoid much?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[im_thatoneguy]

1) If Microsoft wanted to include a secret NSA screen recording app they could hide it in the code and you would never know.
2) If your'e worried about exploits then you should just worry about the fact that your GPU's drivers already offer this capability.
3) Recording your screen is the most useless way to learn things about you that I can think of. If you have access to the system to such a level that you can execute arbitrary code it's far more effective to run a keylogger than a video screen system which would require gigabytes of data to get meaningful information. Install your keylogger and then have millions of computers dump their keystrokes to a database that doesn't require you to sneak terrabytes of data from millions of computers to your server. Then run some data mining software to identify likely username/password combinations.

This is occum's razor shit people. Screen capture software only requires 1-2MBs. It's not like they can't be hidden. And even if they couldn't be easily hidden they're mostly useless.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[telchine]

The current thread is about Windows

YEAH! The current thread is about Windows 10! Name me one Windows 10 exploit that is currently out in the wild amongst active everyday users! Ha, you can't. Never mind the millions of exploits for previous versions, they don't count. They got eradicated in Windows 9! $$DATA

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Kernel mode print drivers are considered obsolete but Microsoft is forced to support them because there are a lot of legacy print systems that need them. And some newer ones that just have shit drivers.

Point is print drivers are notoriously shitty. To the point where MS has them sandboxed and run in a user's context by default in modern (Vista and up) versions of windows. (Type 3 and 4 user mode printer drivers)

In most environments the old kernel mode print stuff is locked away from non-admin users.. But the legacy crap is still there, waiting to be exploited.

Re: Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

The infamous NSA key in XP that people in the inner Microsoft circle didn't know about.

Also, the hack with png or tiff files or whatever.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Screen recording is trivial. Most of the facilities you need are parts of the operating system. You just need to hook in to the graphic subsystems and grab the data via standard APIs. You can do that with few KB of code. Malware has been doing this for damn near decades now.

The hardest task, really, is figuring out what to do with all that data. (Compressing it to video or sequences of stills, coming up with a system to trigger on interesting events, etc)

Why bother with a built-in facility that's likely managed, secured, and logged when there's already small, proven, stealthy, copy-and-paste code available?

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you happen to know which Linux developer keeps introducing new root vulnerabilities in every single release? I'm not complaining. I want to send them a fruit basket. I get to root my android phone. But I didn't know it was so easy to constantly slip vulnerabilities for users to exploit.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Lost Race]

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights do not come into play outside of US sovereign territory.

Do you have any justification for this? The Constitution grants specific powers to the government and explicitly protects some specific rights of the people. Nowhere does the Constitution mention that the government is granted infinite power outside of US borders.

I wonder where the idea comes from that US government agents, acting under their government authority, are suddenly free of all restrictions once they leave the country. It seems preposterous to me.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[exomondo]

Because a constant interactive connection is a tad bit obvious?

Oh and thrashing resources recording the screen and encoding the giant video file isn't of course.

But sending some recordings while you're, let's say, downloading updates...

If you're going to notice remote desktop running in the background then you're going to notice uploading a huge video file. The conspiracy theories are getting a bit ridiculous now.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

If you want to be taken seriously as an OS provider, you have to provide security updates for a reasonable period after someone installs your system, but everything else can and should be separate. They clearly can do it, because the Enterprise edition will.

Of course they can do it, but it might not be in their best interest to do so...

You say "to be taken seriously"... I would submit that > 90% desktop OS market is "serious", and that they are working to keep that, thus the free upgrade to 10.

In return for that free upgrade, they want a few things, like always on updates.

I do see the downsides, such as breaking things or removing functionality... but I get the upside... WAY too many people didn't update XP often enough and security on the web suffered for it...

MS is trying to solve that by keeping the majority of computers up-to-date. In return, they also want to push their software. That doesn't bother me, they are a commercial enterprise, that is what they do.

However, given that Microsoft aren't making any money directly on providing the updates, not even to Windows 10 itself, and their stated aim is to monetize the surrounding ecosystem in the future instead, they have every incentive to lock as many people as they can into this compulsory update cycle and then start using the mechanism to promote or outright install new software or services that do make them money at your expense. And you consented, remember?

Yep, that is the way of things going forward... it isn't likely to change either, I don't think...

Consider for a minute how many other devices update and you really have to do it... My PS3 and PS4 both require updating. Ok, ok, you don't HAVE to do it, but they stop working to some extent if you don't and new games won't run without updating. My iPhone and iPad need updating... Again, you don't HAVE to do it, but stuff stops working if you don't after awhile.

The list is long, keeping stuff updated is just the way things will be in our always online connected world.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Forever Wondering]

afaik, supervisor mode wasnt added until 68030 or 40?

No, the mc68000 always had supervisor/user mode [I was the chief systems programmer for a startup company that designed/manufactured/sold 68000 microprocessor systems and I'm quite familiar with it]. It also had an external MMU chip, which was almost unusable in practical systems [you couldn't use just one--you needed many of them]. Most companies [mine and others (including Sun)] developed their own MMUs from FPGAs.

It had a 16 bit physical data buses, but logically [how a programmer saw it] was 32 bits. It had 8 data registers and 8 address registers. The address registers were 32 bit, but only the lower 24 bits were used [just like the IBM 370].

You might be thinking of a virtual memory capable MMU, which was available as an external chip for the 68020 and integrated on die in the 68030. Note that while the 68010 is listed as having virtual memory support [via restartable instructions], it really couldn't be used easily for virtual memory.

The 68000 was one of the first 32 bit architecture chips, along with the IBM 370 [mainframe] and the VAX. At the time, the 68000 was vastly superior technically/architecturally to the 16 bit Intel 8086. Intel realized this and initiated a marketing blitz that won the day. This is chronicled in Regis McKenna's book "The Regis Touch".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't you try writing intelligently instead of like a first grade retard

you'll probably read this and not get it, though

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[cavreader]

The Constitution may be a little ambiguous in some areas but it doesn't place any restrictions on what state intelligence and clandestine security agencies can do outside of US sovereign territory in the name of national security.The only rule when it comes to conducting intelligence operations in foreign lands is don't get caught. That's why foreign embassies across the world are heavily staffed with intelligence operatives giving them diplomatic immunity if caught in a compromising situation.

"granted infinite power outside of US " The amount of power the US or any country has outside their own borders is ultimately decided by military and economic strength.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

WAY too many people didn't update XP often enough and security on the web suffered for it...

In fairness, if you have users who will double-click an e-mail attachment called "Naked Mila Kunis.jpg.exe" without a second thought, there's not much Microsoft or anyone else can really do to help them short of installing a dramatically more robust security foundation in the OS -- which I hope they will do one day, but it's an extremely complicated problem to do that without undermining usability too much in the process.

As far as software updates go, the vast majority of security vulnerabilities that get patched this way were avoidable with a realistic amount of effort. Many of them come from still writing system or networking software in absurdly error-prone languages like C and C++, for example. Plenty of them happen simply because someone decided to short-circuit a professional level of review and testing procedures, aiming for fast/cheap at the expense of good. As one of the few tech companies in the world that actually has both the resources and the talent to change that, it would be nice to see an organisation like Microsoft pushing for better standards, not joining the ship-junk-and-patch-it-later train as it seems to have been lately. And if they did shift the culture successfully, I see no reason we couldn't go back to having occasional security updates available on demand and keeping major functionality or UI changes separate and optional.

The list is long, keeping stuff updated is just the way things will be in our always online connected world.

Alternative theory:

Every time a big established provider tries to lock users in with this sort of hostile action, they create an opportunity for someone to disrupt their market.

No-one actually likes software that gets updated to be worse than it was when they first chose to install it, just as no-one actually likes having in-your-face advertising or privacy invasions or spam messages when they sign up for free stuff. We now know that a lot of people will tolerate a lot of messing around from technology anyway if there's something in it for them in return, particularly on-line, but usually only as long as they don't think they have a better alternative, and sometimes only as long as they don't fully understand what is really happening or can find a way to rationalise behaviour they aren't really happy with.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

In fairness, if you have users who will double-click an e-mail attachment called "Naked Mila Kunis.jpg.exe" without a second thought, there's not much Microsoft or anyone else can really do to help them short of installing a dramatically more robust security foundation in the OS

QFT!

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[rtb61]

1) They can not hide the code because they have to supply the source code to many countries who are diametrically opposed to the goals of a corrupt NSA, so the code must be out in the open.
2)Not all GPU have that capability, in fact it would be gaming grade only GPU that end up with it and gamers tend to game not conspire world domination, well, not outside of games.
3)How often do you think they need for a snap shot and how detailed does it need to be and with regard to compression techniques where you just store changes in image, those changes are pretty minor, hence storage or transmission required much smaller than you would expect.
4) The professionally paranoid will inevitably seek all the information they can get, not just what they need, they want it all. This is well beyond the needs of security and drifts right into the area of the psychologically disturbed, it feeds their ego, they gain a sense of power over those they monitor with distinct sexual overtones. So yeah, common sense is not the appropriate measure of their activity, especially when their motives are politically corrupt and their actions reflect their personal political biases, basically right wing control freaks.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[FlyHelicopters]

As far as software updates go, the vast majority of security vulnerabilities that get patched this way were avoidable with a realistic amount of effort.

True, but consider that we really just got the first really new leadership at Microsoft since... well, since forever...

With Balmer gone, we can finally have new thinking there.

Every time a big established provider tries to lock users in with this sort of hostile action, they create an opportunity for someone to disrupt their market.

While that is true, it will take something of unbelievable magnitude to shift the world off Windows. Linux has had 20 years to do it, it simply isn't going to happen. Macs cost too much, and there are no other reasonable choices.

Windows is going to be very hard to upstage, regardless of how good or bad it is.

We now know that a lot of people will tolerate a lot of messing around from technology anyway if there's something in it for them in return, particularly on-line, but usually only as long as they don't think they have a better alternative, and sometimes only as long as they don't fully understand what is really happening or can find a way to rationalise behaviour they aren't really happy with.

Consider that a very large percentage of users still think the monitor is "the computer"... the "cloud" is magic, and the Internet is a web browser.

The average person just wants things that work. Windows is very open and this has benefits, but many drawbacks. For all the limits of iPads and iPhones, Apple has sold tons of them because they "just work", and being locked down is one reason why.

Windows could use a bit more locking down, with perhaps options to open things up. The mistake was making everyone an "admin" from day one, instead of closing everything off and requiring permission to change. Vista was an attempt to change that, but given the legacy issues with Windows, it takes time.

Re:Windows 10 has Secret Screen Recording Tool

[rubycodez]

Companies certainly have been hacked and financially via RDP, your ignorance on the subject is astounding.

Linux zealot? Guess again, clicky-pointy boy

I hope it's a standard API

[PhrostyMcByte]

Both NVIDIA and AMD have methods of capturing directly on the GPU, making for a blissfully lag-free experience compared to, say, FRAPS.

Hopefully Windows has created a standard interface for these, and not just reimplemented FRAPS.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[BowlWinder]

Sounds like it pretty much has to be the former. Otherwise it would be unusable with Win 10 installed on any old laptops (Intel 3000, etc.). Of course this isn't a killer feature. But for its purpose, it's something that should be expected to run halfway decently across the board.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

If windows taps into the on gpu recording and offers recording the previous ~5 minutes or so with a keystroke (so you can record when you didn't realize you wanted to record) it will be a big win.

I've not used NVIDIA's shadowplay but it seems to work well for people who use it. AMD's is outsourced to a third party company, the product being raptr gaming evolved. Though when I installed it, the first thing it did was scan my hard drive for all my games, scan all my open tabs in my browser and then upload all this personal data to their servers without any option to opt out. I never would have realized the browser rape if I didn't have cookie clicker (shamefully) open.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[PhrostyMcByte]

I've never used Raptr, because I've heard it's so terrible, but they do have an SDK for it and I have used that.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Dutch Gun]

Actually, someone in the comments below the original article indicated that they couldn't use the feature because their hardware didn't meet the minimum specification. So, it may actually require a minimum level of GPU compliance. This would make sense, as this is specifically targeted at gamers and not a "general purpose" desktop recording system.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[PhrostyMcByte]

The feature is dual-purpose. In AMD's case, it was originally created to improve latency and quality of wireless display tech. That it worked for games too was just a happy coincidence they took advantage of a while later.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Trax3001BBS]

Both NVIDIA and AMD have methods of capturing directly on the GPU, making for a blissfully lag-free experience compared to, say, FRAPS.

Hopefully Windows has created a standard interface for these, and not just reimplemented FRAPS.

Nope, it's a service that is required to be running to stream video (NIVIDA), one of four I disable, making FRAPS the program of choice.

EVGA has PrecisionX which will do screen captures or snapshots, I've found disabling PrecisionX stops a lot of video problems, including screen freezings and games just going away, leaving one staring at the desktop.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Trax3001BBS]

Both NVIDIA and AMD have methods of capturing directly on the GPU, making for a blissfully lag-free experience compared to, say, FRAPS.

Hopefully Windows has created a standard interface for these, and not just reimplemented FRAPS.

Nope, it's a service that is required to be running to stream video (NIVIDA), one of four I disable,

Actually two services, forgot the one required for networking, letting one stream to Geforce and TwitchTV.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not getting it. The service doesn't do the heavy lifting. The MP4/H.264 encoding is done on the video card itself. That's why FRAPS sucks. It's CPU intensive and requires a lot of disk bandwidth. Try recording > 1920x1080@60 FPS with a 4 year old CPU using FRAPS. Then you'll understand why it's an obsolete method.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia's method isn't lossless. FRAPS is. Why would you pick a shitty lossy method of recording when you can just use FRAPS and get lossless recording right there?

And that's ignoring the severe file corruption issues ShadowPlay still has.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia's method isn't lossless. FRAPS is. Why would you pick a shitty lossy method of recording when you can just use FRAPS and get lossless recording right there?

Because it uses less CPU power and disk bandwidth!

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, it uses less CPU power and disk space to create a horrible quality video that half of the time it manages to write a video without corrupting it. Again - lossy, low-bitrate H.264 compression. Unless your goal is create a crappy blurry video on YouTube (and for many gamers, I guess that is their goal), ShadowPlay is useless. I'll stick with the tool that works (and creates better quality videos) than the one that doesn't.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't used ShadowPlay and probably know very little about video compression in general. Even on its lowest setting the video quality produced by ShadowPlay is higher than anything you'll find on YouTube. The quality loss is NOT and issue, at all. Even on a beefy computer at low resolution, FRAPS drops frames, a lot. You probably don't even notice because you're just not very sharp. That's a far more serious problem than your claim of corrupted files. Face it, fanboy, you dropped hard earned coin on FRAPS and now that it's obsolete you can't handle it.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Anonymous Coward]

shitty lossy method

Hello, McFly! You do know that lossy video codecs have adjustable bitrate settings, right? It's not like GIF or something. Yeah, BlueRay discs with their shitty lossy video, hah! I bet you only buy movies on 35mm film.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Gaygirlie]

Great, it uses less CPU power and disk space to create a horrible quality video that half of the time it manages to write a video without corrupting it. Again - lossy, low-bitrate H.264 compression. Unless your goal is create a crappy blurry video on YouTube (and for many gamers, I guess that is their goal), ShadowPlay is useless. I'll stick with the tool that works (and creates better quality videos) than the one that doesn't.

You're asserting your ignorance as a fact. Shadowplay defaults to 50mbps bitrates at 1080p 60FPS, that's hardly "horrible quality." Also, I have yet to see even one instance where it corrupted the captured video. You can always transcode the 50mbps video to something more reasonable in software afterwards if you feel like it, but when you're actually playing it makes sense to let the GPU handle the encoding as there's no drop in framerates, but with Fraps there most definitely is.

Re:I hope it's a standard API

[Whorhay]

I've never used Fraps but I have played with Shadowplay and I have to say it worked way better than I expected. When I went back and watched the video it had created it actually looked better than what I remembered the gameplay actually looking like. Which is probably a result of being focused on gameplay elements at the time I was recording rather than watching for blur and other video artifacts. Anyways that is a much appreciated change from the free video recording applications I had used in the past which hogged resources and produced almost unusable videos. Even if there ends up being some valid argument, or proof, for Fraps performing better. Shadowplay has a very strong position as being good enough, light on resources, free, and already installed for anyone with the proper generation of nvidia card.

Virus writers/hackers rejoice

[Anonymous Coward]

And the virus writers/hackers just got themselves a wonderful new tool...

Re:Virus writers/hackers rejoice

[Dog-Cow]

a wonderful new tool...

You?

Re:Virus writers/hackers rejoice

[ClaraBow]

Funny!

Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah crystal clear recordings of my favorite movies and shows. Soon I can just drop my subscription.

Not really, but I did just run it with Netflix and it makes a perfect copy. I'm sure the copyright police are going to mash it with a banhammer soon enough.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That's actually a bit surprising. Microsoft sure went to a lot of trouble with their precious 'protected media path', so if their own application is merrily recording a DRMed stream(as I believe Netflix is on all supported platforms); either they've screwed up or Netflix couldn't be bothered to use the feature. I imagine that re-compressed copies of streams aren't terribly high priority; but I would have imagined that they'd be contractually obligated to at least pretend to care.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[paul_metcalfe]

You have some proof? Share it with us, please! Hilarious if true, considering the effort that went into the DRM - and how easily it's defeated.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Never used imgur before but here it goes...

http://imgur.com/ZdUNJN7

Hard to prove video with a photo but I included the thumbnail of the file, the file properties showing it was recorded using the x-box dvr and chrome, and it paused on VLC. I also picked a netflix show. It's about the most proof I can bring.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright police? You mean Microsoft mandatory update.

In any case you can only record in real time.so for the amount of time, effort and processing power you'll need to do this you might as well keep the subscription (provided you trust them not to remove the shows).

No the real drama will come from people collaborating to torrent this stuff and others who never had Netflix leeching it. They'll do all sorts of things to work around bans and updates. Expect more obtrusive software from subscription services that tries to detect and disable recording.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[paul_metcalfe]

I think I may install Win 10 in a VM sometime soon and give this a go. Or does this method require direct GPU access?

If I can make backups of my digital movie purchases now, I may actually buy something!

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Blue Stone]

It's OK, there'll be a fix for that.

The Windows 10 mandatory updates that you won't be able to deny permission for, will take care of it.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Billly Gates]

With DRM in HTML5 it has secure endpoints on both ends between a monitor and video card handshake. No it won't work on any copyright protected content

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless there's buggy hardware. I'm not familiar with how this all works, but unless every piece of hardware has its own cert (which can somehow be revoked if it turns out to be buggy - telling the rest of the chain ignore it), there's no way to ensure that a buggy video card won't be able to disable the DRM. Or a cheap monitor which for some reason has a bundled output.

So the choice is - your graphics card can be bricked (or just unable to play DRM), your graphics card can play DRM if there's some kind of bug, or the quality of engineering is so high that not a single piece of hardware that can work with the DRM stream will ever have an exploitable bug.

I don't imagine piracy is going to go away any time soon.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're one of those doofuses who capture audio/video AFTER decoding and then encode it again. And you call this crystal clear, WTF?

Geez dude, just pirate proper BluRay rips like everyone else does and stop being a dumbass.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarious. It's complete with on-screen controls and logos and whatnot. And you call this acceptable as a personal long-term copy, let alone the fact that you're transcoding already compressed material. What a crutch.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[AmiMoJo]

Netflix probably didn't enable the full retard mode, because it would break things for a lot of people. Want to watch on a DVI monitor? Sorry, it doesn't support HDCP encryption like HDMI does. They will have just used the standard windows D3D surface method that foils normal screen capture apps.

Unfortunately for them Microsoft have created a tool that can capture D3D surfaces and encode them on the GPU, much like the XBone and PS4 do. Netflix appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place until Microsoft implement a new API, because they don't want to cripple their app on e.g. laptops that don't bother with a full encrypted path to the internal LCD.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[gbjbaanb]

interesting.. and I know its hard to prove on a still but I'll believe you if you tell me the video recorder also captures sound, and at a decent quality?

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect Netflix quality sound (I guess)

126 kbps and 2 channel @ 44kH

I'm not sure what Netflix plays at.

Re:Netflix and Movie Library

[Anonymous Coward]

No you idiot. If it could capture the encoded stream, this whole thing would be pointless. Of course everything you capture is encoded (again) after decoding it to raw data.

Stop throwing around technical terms if you have no clue at all. Just because you are able to press a button and have some tangible result, doesn't mean you have any idea what's going on.

And it's idiots like you who pester the P2P networks with their MP3-encoded-to-FLAC bullshit.

Re:Fucking Millennials

[paul_metcalfe]

It's like spectator sports! Except these are games the viewers play themselves too.

May be for troubleshooting, but alternatives exist

[Aryeh Goretsky]

Hello,

It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more worried about drivers for all my peripherals. Will they be available and working when it is released or do I have to wait for months for crappy drivers and me regretting updating to Win 10?

Re:Drivers

[BronsCon]

I'm running the insider preview on a Vaio that has excellent Win 8.1 support, save for two devices that only have Win 8 drivers. Where I could not find a Win 10 driver, the Win 8.1 drivers work. Where a Win 8.1 driver doesn't exist, the Win 8 drivers work. No stability issues and the hardware works just fine. I don't think you'll have a problem, MS hasn't changed their driver architecture since 8 came out and, even then, they only changed a couple subsystems, so most Win7 drivers should even still work. Of course, you get the odd hardware manufacturer that exploits some OS bug here or there in their drivers and yes, those drivers do stop working during OS upgrades (or even on the odd Patch Tuesday) when those bugs are fixed; screw those guys, though.

Re:Drivers

[Ark42]

Given how bad the stock Intel and nVidia drivers make my Vaio Flip 15 function compared to the modified Sony ones, I'm pretty worried about upgrading to Windows 10. Drivers aren't going to be available until November according to Sony - http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/... - because mine came with 8 (not 8.1) preinstalled, even though 8.1 was out at the time.

Re:Drivers

[BronsCon]

I'm running the Win 8 nVidia drivers from Sony on my VPCF232FX with no issues. Have you tried that? Win 10, combined with Apple's change in direction over the past 3-4 years, is making me start seriously considering coming back to Windows. I switched to Mac a few months after Win 7 came out, after I started working for a Mac dev shop, and haven't looked back once until I installed the Win 10 preview. Loving it. I did glance at 8 and 8.1, but wanted to blow my brains out after 5 minutes of using either of them. What train wreck those were! Seriously, had I not been on OSX at that point, I probably would have ended up using Ubuntu as my primary desktop OS again.

Really, with the direction Apple has been going in with OSX and the Mac line, and the direction Windows was headed with 8 and 8.1, it was starting to look like the year of the Linux desktop wasn't that far off. Someone at MS finally woke up, I guess; now if Tim Cook can do the same, Linux might be able to stay on my servers, where it belongs, and I might be able to keep Windows as only a testing OS. Not gonna hold my breath... and anyway, it's been over 5 years, I'm due for another platform jump, anyway. Way overdue, actually; I usually switch every other year!

Re: Drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

The driver problem really started to go away with Microsoft Vista because they did a complete rewrite of the driver base. The main issue with Vista was Graphic drivers and that was because the gpu manufacturers tried to get away with using winxp drivers and tweaking them. Once everyone got on board with creating drivers specifically for Vista the problems mostly went away. Contray to most BS claims Vista SP2 worked very well and was surprisingly stable. I rarely had problems with it and know people who still use it to this day. Win7 uses the same driver setup as Vista. As usual, outside of funky gpu drivers, driver problems are rarely an issue unless you are working with older hardware. Then it's just a case of have to use the older operating systems. I know clients that are forced to run Win NT 4 servers because the manufacturer is out of business or the upgrade is way to over priced for company to make the switch.

Re:Drivers

[Ark42]

I'm pretty sure this stupid hybid GPU system is the reason I need Sony-specific drivers and the Intel/nVidia default graphic drivers just make things run super super slow. I do suspect the current 8/8.1 drivers will work just fine on 10 though, but Sony's official position is to not install Windows 10 until after November right now.

Re:Drivers

[BronsCon]

And for a production or primary system, they're spot-on. But this is Slashdot, who here only has one computer? I threw it on my Vaio because it's the slowest machine I could find in my stock that wasn't already in use. I have to say, it freaking' screams compared to XP, 7, 8 (I skipped 8.1 because 8 was so bad I ended up switching platforms on that machine briefly, before retiring it), Ubuntu, hackintosh'd OSX, or even Haiku on the same machine. Microsoft hasn't impressed me since Win 7, and I was only mildly impressed with that. Well, they've done it again! And this is without drivers optimized for the new release...

Re:May be for troubleshooting, but alternatives ex

[mjwx]

Hello,

It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

The Problem Steps Recorder is a boon to anyone who hates doing doco. One of the best new features of Server 2008.

But the PSR doesn't take videos.

How long before someone figures out it can capture

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before someone figures out it can capture usernames/passwords remotely...

Re:May be for troubleshooting, but alternatives ex

[Pubstar]

Yeah, but PSR takes screenshots at every screen interaction, along with keystrokes and mouse clicks. It works good enough when people are too stupid to tell me exactly what they are doing.

2009 Newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.03.utilityspotlight2.aspx

Re:2009 Newsflash

[NotInHere]

... but this time, its with windows 10!

Test for the last three months.

[Anonymous Coward]

Edge: Faster that all browsers(currently), no addons.
Groove: Can't uninstall.
New Start : Looks good.

Conclusion: I have been using Windows10 desktop (3 mounths), and WP10 for the last month(lacking WAY behind). Without Dx12 this release (as it is) , a foot step into Microsoft preinstalled software into malware. Yes you can take it out the olf fashion safemode, delete, reg, appdata, etc. Time is money. Looks like this is the furture.

Tomato tamato

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamers, NSA, tomato, tamato

Welcome to 2009

[Dan B.]

Not to create a Mac vs Windows argument, but Quicktime X has had screen recording for OS X since Snow Leopard

Normally it is Apple who are the laggards

Re:Welcome to 2009

[viperidaenz]

Welcome to June 2009 you mean.

Welcome to March 2009 https://technet.microsoft.com/...

Re:Welcome to 2009

[Dan B.]

Exactly! "This is hardly news in 2015" was my point; I just happen to use a Mac and it's been around for ages. Seems that Windows utility has been around for some time too although I'd never heard about it until reading this thread.

Re:Welcome to 2009

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, screen recorders have existed since way before 2009.

The GP mentioned QuickTime X on Snow Leopard because it was included with the operating system, like this new tool in Windows 10.

Re:How long before someone figures out it can capt

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before someone figures out it can capture usernames/passwords remotely...

No need. Keyloggers already do that. On the other hand, putting my tinfoil hat on, this is sure to be a real boon for the FBI/CIA/NSA. They will now be able to see exactly what you see on your screen. And I'm sure that (other) hackers will find some really creative uses for this new functionality. You life will now be an open book to the world! It sure will suck for anyone who has any issues with privacy though.

Put it in a VM, on a private LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

And snoop what it phones home. Should be interesting. I found that forbidding the constant CRL checking and WindowsUpdate noise at the Squid layer improves responsiveness and sucks up a lot less bandwidth.

Re:Put it in a VM, on a private LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

And snoop what it phones home. Should be interesting. I found that forbidding the constant CRL checking and WindowsUpdate noise at the Squid layer improves responsiveness and sucks up a lot less bandwidth.

of course it does. CRL checking takes times but it is important, obviously you don't care about security which is fine but you should hardly recommend that as an approach as It removes your ability to know if the certificate of the site you are accessing has been compromised/revoked and ensures that all the malware has an easy open path to your machine.

Re:Put it in a VM, on a private LAN

[TCM]

"Oh, OP! Don't remove your CRL checks by means of a self-inflicted MitM attack because then you're not secure against real MitM attacks!"

It's hilarious how you fail to see the connection.

So... OBS?

[philmarcracken]

Everything 'new' coming to windows 10 ive already got in 3rd party form for win7. That is until directx 12 is forced apon us.

Re:Fucking Millennials

[epyT-R]

Aww, sounds like someone's got an early case of the mondays.

Re:Fucking Millennials

[tshawkins]

A GNU Herd user obviously ........

Get some dignity man .....

Open Broadcaster Software is a great free one

[Rooked_One]

Works for everything... a little complex, but it has tons of features and you can customize it quite a bit for your needs.

Re:can you compete with M$?

[Anonymous Coward]

clever app? wtf? even MS has had utilities available to do this for over 5 years, Camtasia just relied on ignorance of what was freely available.

Microsoft Astroturf

[gavron]

Looks like Microsoft has learned from the past. This time instead of releasing an OS and letting people comment, they're releasing "nuggets" of features and then having their shils spit out their "talking points."

About 1/3 are pro-Microsoft: "Oh how awesome! I've been wanting this feature forever. It's so awesome!" (Hasn't been released yet...)

The other 2/3 are rebuttals:
1. You need to wear a tinfoil hat. If you don't trust Microsoft you're paranoid.
2. You see conspiracies everywhere. If you don't believe everywhere in this "article" (it's not an article) then you think EVERYTHING is a conspiracy.
3. Microsoft is more trustworthy than Apple
4. Microsoft is more trustworthy than an OS with no vendor!!! (Linux)

Add a PR-created "leak" of Cortana for Android (ooh how clever, it's like Siri from Windows on an Android... )

Color me impressed they're putting almost as much effort into this as Vladimir Putin does into his.

E

Re:Microsoft Astroturf

[Anonymous Coward]

you missed 5. Anti M$ shills posting claiming everything positive is from M$ shills and anything attacked for idiocy is a conspiracy by said shills.

Re:Microsoft Astroturf

[Anonymous Coward]

Though you're missing the main point: Once you get past the kernel everything Linux is shitware. With Windows it's the other way around.

This has been a paid ad of the microsoft corporati

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been a paid ad of the microsoft corporation. No one else cares (that much) about what they put in or don't put in. If they leave something out, and *paying* customers yell, they will put something not prior included in. If there is something not there that you would like, (and this is apparently something many microsoft users don't know), you can get software not included with the operating system that you can run on your computer that may just run on the operating system, although if its microsoft, the official word is that if its not microsoft approved, then its not microsoft compatible, and you should run from that program fast otherwise it will not just eat your entire computer, but your entire house.

Re:May be for troubleshooting, but alternatives ex

[paul_metcalfe]

This is such a useful too it's a shame it's so hidden and so few know of it.

I'm assuming the Win 10 screen recorder gets better frame rates with games and such.

Re:can you compete with M$?

[Anonymous Coward]

Users win of course; but developers may stop innovating if there is no $ reward.

That's what I keep telling the freetards but they continue happily slitting their own throats. </SARCASM>

Re:Fucking Millennials

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't even call it playing games anymore. They are so special that what they do is called "e-sports". No you're playing a fucking game, same as your parents did with Pacman.

Slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? This is news on Slashdot?

Re:How long before someone figures out it can capt

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before someone figures out it can capture usernames/passwords remotely...

Then why has no one raised concerns of using the current Snipping Tool remotely for taking screenshots? Because it doesn't work that way...

Limited GPU chips supported in current build

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever it is, is looks more like an "aspiration" than a feature.

The pop-up gleefully asks if your a Gamer.. then shuts you down if it doesn't detect a proper Graphics chipset.

Typical they started with AMD chipset first and are slowly adding on things like Intel.. Nvida looks to be last in line.. like.. whyw would Nvidia ever help "anyone?" They're Masters of the Universe and plan to annex all the PCs on Earth with the Nvidia Operating System.. any day now. Sheez.. Nvidia.. grow up.

When will it support HW-accelerated encoding?

[Anonymous Coward]

because that's when it actually becomes useful.

Windows 10 -- no thanks!

[aaaaaaargh!]

Some of my essential audio tools have already been reported not to work properly on Windows 10, so I'll be damned sure not to upgrade anytime soon. I have already removed the upgrade notification.

Re:Windows 10 -- no thanks!

[Galaga88]

Are they legacy products or is there a chance the developers will update them to work?

This brings up an interesting question - what is the mechanism for people who are eligible for the free Windows 10 upgrade but want to hold off on the install (potentially past the free upgrade period?)

Re:Windows 10 -- no thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hold on guys, stop the release of Windows 10 immediately!. We are going to need to go back to the drawing board because we forgot to accommodate this guy." Said Bill Gates

screen reading tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 and 10 decides who is control of your own PC (not you) , requires Internet, and thus is obsolete.

Anyone else underwhelmed by this "news"?

[wonkey_monkey]

Windows 10 Will Have...

Jarvis-like artificial intelligence? Multi-spectral facial recognition? Interial dampeners?

...Screen Recording Tool

Wow. I don't think that could have been less exciting.

it's a bit of a no-brainer really.

[Dr_Barnowl]

They already have by far the best remote-desktop service. [1]

A screen-recording tool just needs to be able to serialize the stream that RDP uses to disk - very efficient, very conservative of space. I can't believe that the Linux RDP tools don't already do this.

[1] "Best" as in - works, works well, has low latency and the tools are easy to get hold of and set up.

NX or whatever it has evolved into was very good in terms of performance, raw X11 blows over a network (which is ironic given that's part of it's design brief and one of the principle things holding back the Linux desktop environment for so long). Neither are easy to set up or use.

also they made record steps tool in win7, no video

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, in Win7 they introduced "Record steps to reproduce a problem" which takes a series of screenshots and produces a HTML file you can provide to tech support or to your fellow employees. It is pretty handy as a way of generating documentation too. It only takes screenshots and not videos, though.

Security wishes

[LessThanObvious]

I really hope Lync screen sharing, WebEx and the like provide a way for those sharing their screens to know when the peer enables recording. I know there are still holes in that, but it scares me to think of the potential leaks that could be created in tech support scenarios.

Windows 3.1

[A Pressbutton]

Didnt Windows 3.1 have a screen recorder?

So a video version of Problem Steps Recorder?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

This reminded me of a tool in Windows that's been around for a while. If you run "psr" from the Start menu or a Command Prompt, it opens up Problem Steps Recorder, a tool that can record where you click and type, what you type, and various comments. I've occasionally used it to record a series of steps to reproduce a bug so that I can send detailed instructions to the people who need to fix the bug.

Re:May be for troubleshooting, but alternatives ex

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

My name is Aryeh Goretsky too but I don't go around copying my name into each and every post I write like some kind of narcissistic asshole. I mean it's already right there in the username field, why would I need to copy it into the body as well? Nobody else is dumb enough to do this.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Secret

[JohnStock]

You mean that widely publicised secret Game DVR.. ok.