Screen recording without third-party software on Windows 7?

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.

screen-capture

Adam Kane

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 1 407

Answers

The closest thing I can think of is Problem 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:

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

..and then stream it to a file:

Click the arrow icon to the right of play, and click "Stream"
Leave the default "Source: screen://" and click "Next"
Select "File" in the dropdown and click "Add"
Choose a filename then click "Next"
Choose your encoding and then click "Next"
Click "Stream"

Hope this helps.

Travis

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 2 125

@Travis I tried this several times with different encoders. I have to uncheck "Activate transcoding" or they crash. – David Doria – 2016-03-21T00:18:27.273

2VLC for capturing screen is really annoying – Junior M – 2011-06-29T13:28:46.420

VLC is really a great option unless you need to track mouse movement and events and/or track multiple screens – Gatis Bergšpics – 2012-06-19T12:01:29.600

More information on screen capture with VLC: http://superuser.com/questions/261167/how-do-i-capture-a-video-of-my-windows-7-desktop-in-vlc

– Ehtesh Choudhury – 2013-05-16T19:26:31.343

Well.

You asked for "without third party software". I suggest you Microsoft´s Expression Encoder 4. There´s a limited free version that captures the screen for 10 minutes.

Fernando F.

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 251

5It's even better: With Expression Encoder 4 SP2, the time limit has been removed! – Henning – 2012-06-23T03:31:19.650

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27870

– Michael S. – 2013-07-24T13:31:27.067

You can use "Screenrecorder" which is a utility from Microsoft, based on Windows Media Encoder.

It's not included by default in Windows, but can be downloaded from this Microsoft Technet page.

sparrowt

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 2 013

It records into WMV. Unfortunately it doesn't show mouse clicks on the record in any way. Just the cursor. – Lu55 – 2019-05-02T21:33:30.767

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

Umber Ferrule

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 3 149

CamStudio has become malicious software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamStudio#Malicious_software

– James Newton – 2017-08-30T21:48:42.707

If the problem is specifically installing third-party software, you can use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to your Windows 7 box from another PC that does have recording software installed, and record just the Remote Desktop Connection window.

CarlF

Posted 2009-11-04T19:01:20.507

Reputation: 8 576