Why is the PSR tool from Windows 7 unable to save screenshots when using RDP?

Question

I was using the Windows 7 "Problem Steps Recorder" through remote desktop to take notes on how some people did their jobs. And when it was over I was horrified to see that the screenshots had not been taken...a few were but at least half of them were missing and replaced with a box that reads:

No screenshots were saved for this problem step

I've used this tool before and never had a problem with it (although admittedly this may be the first time I have used it while remoting in via RDP).

I wanted to use the tool on the machines of the people showing me their jobs, but all of those machines ran Windows XP.

What could have caused this? Was it because I was running remote desktop? Maybe there were too many steps? There were 323 steps.

I just realized I was also running Dextop I wonder if that caused a problem? And additionally was connecting to yet another RDP session from there...sigh now that I think about it, it sounds like a long shot.

Answer 1

You have to specify 100 in the config dialog and it doesn't warn you when it is throwing away screenshots. Oh and don't forget to do the administrator access either or you'll lose any UAC related steps.

Answer 2

Recorder has a maximum limit of 100 screenshots. Check in settings, if you click more than the setting (default is 25) they will be the last (whatever the setting is) and will be at the bottom of the file you saved.

Answer 3

There is both good news and bad news.

The good news is that you can increase the number of screenshots that are captured from 25.

The bad news is that there is a limit to the number of screenshots and it all depends on what version of Windows you are using.

· If using Windows 7 / Windows 2008 screenshots can be increased from 25 to 99.

· If using Windows 8 / Windows 2012 screenshots can be increased from 25 to 999!

Another drawback of using PSR is that it doesn’t tell you when you hit the maximum number of screenshots, so keep this in mind.