With Windows 11, there is an inclusive software that allows you to record your computer screen.
Now, strictly speaking, it is designed to record gaming on your PC, but you can use it for other
things as well.
So, for instance, you can record certain activities within your browser, so maybe a YouTube video
or a Zoom meeting or something like that.
You can also use it for some of the other Microsoft applications.
So, for instance, I was able to record a tutorial within Microsoft Excel using the software.
But anyway, I've got these two clips of what the software can record.
So I'll quickly show you the first clip now.
And here's the second clip of a game, so I'll show you that now.
So as you can see, it is pretty handy.
So when it comes to do's and don'ts with the software?
Well, actually, I suppose it would be called the do's and cons some things you can do and some things
you cannot.
So, for instance, you cannot record your desk top.
So what you see right now in front of you?
So what I'll do is I'll just show my icons so that it looks like a real desktop.
You can not record this here and you can not record your file explorer.
So this year, you're limited to this.
Now, as you already know, you can record your browser like this, but if at any point you minimize
your browser and the same with games as well and you expose your desktop, the recording will just stop
and won't even tell you that it stops.
It will just stop.
So just be aware of that.
So when you record with the software, it's nice to know where these clips are actually being safe to.
Now, strictly speaking, the folder has only a few clicks away.
But what I'd like to do is have the folder on the desktop itself so that I can just click on it and
have access to those clips straight away.
So what are we going to do is we're going to move that folder and put it onto the desktop.
So to get that folder?
What we have to do is we have to hold down the Windows key and press I.
And this will open up the Windows settings, and you have to come to gaming, then come to captures.
Then this is the folder we want here, so I'm going to click on Open Folder.
And I'm going to take a look at the path here, so it says it's this PC videos captures, so this is
where this folder is.
So I want to click on this PC here.
In fact, I didn't have to click all the way back, but it's OK, I'll click on videos and I'll click
on the Captures folder and I'm going to hold down control and press seal my keyboard to copy it.
Minimize this and I'll get rid of this here.
Control plus v to paste it on my desk top.
So here is the Captures folder.
And as you can see, I already have some screen captures in here.
So the next thing is setting up your microphone.
Now, if you're using a laptop, then more than likely you will have some type of in-built microphone.
However, if you're using a desktop PC, then more than likely you will not have an in-built microphone.
Well, I mean, some of them do, but typically they don't.
And you have to use some type of external microphone.
But with regard to actually recording yourself like what I'm doing now, you have to go to the sound
settings to set that up.
So just come to the little magnifying glass here, come up to the search bar type and sound and then
click on sound settings.
And then just scroll down a little bit and you'll see the microphone that I'm using is registered here.
So if you're on a laptop and you have an external microphone plugged in, you should have the option
of two microphones to choose from and you can just choose whichever one you want.
There's also another thing here, which is the volume of the microphone.
If you're recording and your microphone is really low, then you need to come to this area here and
just turn up the microphone.
So once your microphone is all set up, you can get rid of these settings here and now we can open up
the screen recording software itself.
Now, I tried to do this earlier, but unfortunately my screen recording software was clashing with
the Windows screen recording software.
So what I had to do was I had to compile a whole load of screenshots and put them into PowerPoint.
Now let's get your screen recorder up and running.
You have to hold down the Windows key and press on your keyboard, and this will show up.
Now, let's get rid of it.
All you have to do is just press escape on your keyboard and it will shut down.
So I'm just going to run through a few of the settings with the screen recorder, but I think a few
of them are pretty obvious to start recording.
You can hit this button here and it will start recording.
And by the way, when you start recording, it won't actually see what we're actually seeing on a screen.
It would just see what's in the background.
But yeah, you hit this button to start recording.
And there's also this here the microphone setting.
You can turn this on or off if you want to record yourself on a microphone.
So that's pretty straightforward.
Then there's this middle module here and here at the top, we have these widgets.
Now, if you wanted to add widgets and there aren't that many of them, you can just come to this icon
here and add some widgets.
Now, as you already know, we've already added a CAPTCHAs folder to the desktop where we can get a
hold of our captures straight away.
But if you really wanted to, you can hold down the Windows key and press G to come to this window here,
and you can just click on Gallery here.
Once it's been added to the toolbar and you'll gain access to those clips, but I just prefer to have
the capture folder on the desktop then as this icon here.
And this is very similar to the Processes tab within the task manager.
And basically, it just tells you, OK, what programs are running right now or what applications are
running in the background?
So that I suppose before you start your game, you might want to shut some of them down so that your
computer has as much processing power as possible.
So with regard to this window, to get the real time information, you can just hold down control,
shift and press escape.
The task manager will open up and then you just want to navigate to the Processes tab.
And basically, they should be identical.
So what have you see in this window here should be identical to what you're seeing in here?
In this particular instance, though, not identical because these screenshots are from yesterday.
But basically, they should be identical.
So before you shut anything down, just make sure that you know what you're shutting down because it
might be a critical program.
So just be careful with regard to that.
Then finally, we have the settings here, and there's just two main areas I want to take a look at.
There's the capturing section, which is the audio to record.
And this gives you the option to OK, record the game and enabled Mike.
Or you have the all option here or not to choose whatever option suits you best.
And then there's the shortcuts themselves.
So we already know the Windows key plus G brings up the screen recorder itself, but the other one to
remember is going to be this one here.
The Windows Key Plus Alt Plus are to start recording and stop recording, if you can be bothered to
click this icon here.
So like I said before, to get rid of this, all you have to do is press escape and it will disappear.
OK, so there's just one last thing I want to go through with you.
We need to go back to the window settings, so hold down the windows key and press eye on your keyboard,
then come to gaming.
Then come to captures.
And just scroll down a little bit and we have these settings here.
So the main wants to take a look at, I suppose, would be maybe the max recording length, because
sometimes you might forget to turn off the recorder, in which case you don't want it to eat up all
of the memory on your computer.
So you might want to set this to, well, whatever you want.
Captured the audio when recording the game.
That's an important one.
And there's also the video frame rates.
So at the moment, it's set to 30 frames per second, which is recommended, and that's fine with me,
considering Hollywood only uses 24 frames per second.
So if 24 frames per second is good enough for Hollywood, 30 frames per second is good enough for me.
Then there's the video quality, and depending on how powerful your computer is and how much memory
you have as well, because the higher video quality is obviously going to use more memory, you might
want to choose high or just standard.
So whichever one you prefer.
And you can just turn this option off here to have the cursor within your game.
It's totally up to you.
Once you're done, you can just exit that.
And we're all done that.
So once you've finished recording, remember you can just navigate to your captures folder on the desktop
and it should be in here.
So the one thing to take away from this is just to remember you cannot record the desktop and you cannot
record the File Explorer.
But there are other things as well you need to be aware of.
So for instance, if I was to go to YouTube and watch a video and put that video in full screen, you
may find that the screen recorder will stop working.
So I noticed this within Windows 11.
It didn't happen with Windows 10, but it happens in Windows 11.
So that's just something to be aware of.
So you just have to test, test, test just to find out what the software is actually capable of.
OK, I'm going to move on to the next tutorial now where I'm going to quickly introduce you to the software
that I use, just in case you're interested in doing what I do.