Sunday, August 31, 2025

The King is Dead. Long Live Our New King

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Getting the old Snipping Tool back

Why you hate the new one

What you can do about it

Can you launch in a (different) way that adds the border (so that you can keep the old way also)?


By the grace of God, someone has decided to make the old one available. Thank you Andrew3583.

Another user says "Legacy snipping tool. This is far superior to the modern one and also is useful if you do the classic taskbar modification which breaks the newer snipping tool."

Given that you'll be storing this file in a custom (I recommend, why mess with *the* Windows folder?) you can use chatGPT to give you an AutoHotKey shortcut to use to launch it.

Problems with the Windows 11 version

In rectangle-capture-mode, you can't drag across monitor boundaries. Thank you M$. Why do they do this to their own fans?

By default, it saves everything you capture to the Screenshots folder. Good and bad. You decide.

Your options

Use SHIFT+PrtScn : This will capture the entire screen (all monitors) to clipboard. You can then launch Paint with a shortcut and paste and grab your rectangle there. Note that WIN+PrtScn will copy to clipboard AND save to Shortcuts folder.

Use the old Snipping Tool

Can you add the border "on demand"?

Here’s the catch:

How Snipping Tool handles “border”

  • That border option is a global preference stored in the app’s settings (Registry/AppData).

  • There is no exposed command-line switch or URI parameter (like ms-screenclip:) to force “border on” vs “border off” for a given capture.

  • So, if you enable “Add border,” every capture will have it until you toggle it off again.

So? You can set up two hacky shortcuts that do the dirty work each time, or, given you want the ability to capture WITHOUT a border and WITH a border, use the Old Snipping Tool for without and the new one for with 😊

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