Ever had the need to take screenshot of UAC prompt in Windows for social sharing, work purpose? Recently, I had to share information about an annoying UAC prompt caused by an application I was using. At the prompt, I tried to usual key combination Alt+PrintScr but that didn’t work and nor did PrintScr key. Interesting.
A quick search yielded that Windows employs Secure Desktop mode when a UAC prompt is displayed. Before judging it as an evil, as a matter of fact, Secure Desktop mode allows only trusted “System” processes to run thereby preventing any other application to alter the UAC prompt. The side-effect of this is that it also prevents the user from taking screenshot of UAC!
Workaround – Disable Secure Desktop Mode
So the solution is to disable what’s causing the issue. Simple. Follow the steps mentioned below to disable Secure Desktop Mode in Windows 10.
- Click Start.
- Start typing “regedit” (without quotes).
- Navigate to the key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\PromptOnSecureDesktop.
- Right-click on “PromptOnSecureDesktop” and click Modify.
- Enter 0 in the Value data box and click OK.
- Exit Registry Editor.
Here’s the video demonstrating the steps.
You should now be able to take screenshot of UAC prompt on Windows machine without using any 3rd part software. Once you are done taking screenshot(s), make sure to change the registry value back to 1 to turn on Secure Desktop mode for the reasons mentioned earlier.
This is tested on Windows 10 Pro. But this should work on other editions (versions) of Windows 10 as well and Windows 7 too.
