Screen recording without third-party software on Windows 7?

Question

Is there a way to do screen recording on Windows 7 without installing third party software? (Doing it with Microsoft software would be okay).

Specifically, I'd like to be able to run a program and generate a video file (for example, .avi) of the session. These would be short 30 second or so clips.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The closest thing I can think of is Program Steps Recorder.

You can access it by clicking the Start button and typing "psr.exe" and hitting enter.

This tool will record each mouse-click and save it as an image, then compile everything into HTML (more specifically, a Microsoft MHT file). However this is not a video capture tool. As far as I know, there isn't one built-in to Windows.

You may look into downloading the free VLC player. With VLC, you can use your desktop as a capture device:

1. Click Media
2. Click Open Capture Device
3. Choose Capture Mode: Desktop (at this point, you may want to set a higher FPS)

..and then stream it to a file:

1. Click icon to the left of play
2. Stream
3. Hit next, then click Add next to the dropdown (make sure File is selected)
4. Choose a filename and click Stream

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't know if it will be enough, but you can look into the Problem Steps Recorder.

Answer 3

I've used CamStudio in the past. You could install it elsewhere, copy to a USB drive, and use it portably from there?

Answer 4

If the problem is specifically installing third-party software, you can use Remote Desktop to connect to your Win7 box from another PC that does have recording software installed, and record just the RD window.