How to Use Hidden Steps Recorder in Windows 7 & 10

How to Use Hidden Steps Recorder in Windows 7 & 10

Steps Recorder or commonly known as Problems Steps Recorder in Windows 7, is a program that captures step by step actions you perform while troubleshooting any problem or while performing any task.
It is a recording which is made of the actions you perform on your computer that can be shared with people helping you solve the computer problem.
Being an easy to use tool for recording tasks performed, makes Steps Recorder a valuable utility. There have always been applications that could record your screen but Microsoft has made this process very easy and specific to problem-helping.

How to use Steps Recorder Windows 7:

1. To open Steps Recorder windows 7 click on “Start” button and in search bar type “psr”.
In Windows 7, you will see “psr.exe” and in Windows 10 the name given to it s Steps Recorder. Simply click on it and the program will open.


Note: You will find three buttons in the Steps Recorder i.e. Start Record, Stop Record and Add Comment.
1. Click on Start Record button. Steps Recorder then takes screenshots of every action you perform and make logs every time you complete an action, like a mouse click, finger tap, program opening or closing, etc.

You can easily identify when Steps Recorder is recording, when the Start Record button changes to a Pause Record button and the title bar flashes Recording now.

2. Finish all the steps necessary to show the problem you’re having.
Note: If in between you need to pause the recording for some reason, tap the Pause Record button. To resume the recording press Resume Record.

Tip: If you wish to add comments in between, simply click on Add Comment button for highlighting a section of your screen and manually adding a comment. This is useful if you’d like to point out something specific that’s occurring on the screen to the person who’s helping you out.

You can use your mouse to select the part of the screen that you wish to comment on, type your comment, and then select OK.

3. Once you have finished recording select Stop Record button, name the .zip file, choose where to save it, and then select Save.

4. The zip file can now be shared amongst people helping you. Also, when the zip file is extracted, you will get another file of the same name as the zip file but in .mht format. When you open this file, you will find all the steps you have performed with the logs.

You can even review the steps in the slide show.
Now you can send the files to the person or the group helping with your problem.

To change settings:

  1. To open settings in Steps Recorder in Windows 7, click on the down arrow near Help icon and click on Settings.
  2. In Settings you can change the following:
      • Output location. If you want to set a permanent location for saving files instead of being prompted for a location and file name every time you save a file, select Browse to set a location and file name.
      • Enable screen capture. Select No if you do not wish to capture screen shots—doing this will only record a text description of the steps.
      • Number of recent screen captures to store. The default is 25 screens, incase if you need to record more, you can increase this number. The maximum number of screens that can be recorded at a time is 100.

Note: Settings you adjust are temporary—they will revert to the defaults when you close and reopen the program.

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