[General Topics] richiev4:
Taking Screen Shots of your Pocket PC

Note: These instructions are for Windows XP. I have a vista skin loaded so the screen shots look a little like Vista. I do not know if these instructions or programs are actually compatible with Vista

I have been looking around this and other websites and have noticed a lot of people asking how to take screen shots of their PPC

While there are a number of software packages available to do this they all cost money.

However there is a way that is easy and best of all completely free. The following is my guide to doing this.

You will need to download the following 2 programs

Remote Display Control for Pocket PC

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/wce/downloads/ppctoys.mspx#ELD

And

Screen Rip32

http://www.progency.com/other.html

Now that you have downloaded the 2 programs we will start by installing them.

Remote Display Control:

To install this you will need to have your PPC connected to your PC.

Double click on ‘remotedsp.exe’ and follow the on screen prompts. This will install the desktop software to you PC and then the PPC client to your device.

Screen Rip32:

This program does not require installation as it can be run once you have un-zipped it to your desktop. If you don’t want it on your desktop you can move it anywhere you want to. I keep mine on my Flash Drive so that I always have it with me.

Now the fun part

To take a screen shot you need to first run the ‘Remote Display Control’ software on you PC first. This will display an empty window that looks like this

As you can see not much use at the moment

You now need to run the PPC client

The file is called ‘cerdisp’ and will be in the following folder

‘Windows - Start Menu - Programs’ of the storage area you chose when you installed the software

Tap the file and the program will run.

The first screen you will see is an about screen tap ‘OK’

Now tap ‘Connect’ and then ‘OK’ keeping all of the defaults. (I can’t do screen shots for these for obvious reasons)

You should now have a window on your desktop that displays the screen on your PPC.

Now that you have your PPC screen displayed on your desktop you can start taking screen shots. This is where ‘Screen Rip32’ comes in

Navigate to and open the folder you un-zipped ‘Screen Rip32’ too and click the .exe file. You should see the following window:

Now select one of the options from the ‘Screen Rip32’ window. The icons you are interested in are the 7 just before the question mark; they are as follows from left to right

Grab Screen – this will capture the entire desktop area.

Grab Rectangular Area – this will allow you to select and area of the screen to capture, once selected your cursor will change and you can draw a box arounf the area of the screen you wish to capture.

Grab Window – once selected you can click on the window you wish to capture

Grab Active Window – This will capture a screen shot of the last window you clicked on

Grab Active Window Client – This will capture the contents of the last window you clicked on.

Custom Region – Allows you to define and area of the screen to capture

Client Area – Allows you to select any client area you wish

The best option to use (for taking PPC screen shots) is No 7 as this will capture only the screen and nothing else.

Here is an example to take a screen shot of the today screen

Follow the instructions above to run both programs

On the ‘Screen Rip32’ window click the ‘Client Area’ icon

The ‘Screen Rip32’ window will disappear

Now move your mouse pointer over the area you wish to capture, as you do you will notice that each ‘Client’ area is highlighted.

Click on the area you want

After a short delay the ‘Screen Rip32’ window will re-appear with the screen shot you took ready to be saved.

If you wish to take screen shots of different screens on you PPC all you need to do is make sure your PPC is displaying the correct screen and repeat the process.

The ‘Remote Display Control for Pocket PC’ software not only allows you to see your PPC screen on your desktop it also allows you to control the PPC from the desktop. Just use the mouse as if it were a stylus. i.e. ‘Click’ to ‘Tap’ and ‘Click and Hold’ to ‘Tap and Hold’.

A word of warning – do not try to quit the ‘Remote Display Control’ client on your PPC from your desktop, do it from the device it’s self, it will freeze if you do (nothing that a soft reset wouldn’t fix – for me anyway)

I hope some people will find this info useful, please let me know what you think. Also, as you can see I have taken a screen shot of my today screen; if you use this method please post you today screens below.

Have fun

Rich

ps If this is useful and could be added to the Xda-Wiki i can add more screenshots