Screen Capturing for Windows Phone 7 Devices

Here’s a tip that has me a bit excited particularly as it will help me enrich my Windows Phone 7 entries with native screenshots!

Thanks to Jerry Jiang over at XDA Developers there is a side loadable app called Screen Capturer to enable screenshots on a Windows Phone 7 device by half pressing the camera button (similar to how you engage the focus for the camera). Basically, the app runs as a task in the background for a period of time of up to five minutes and will capture your screenshots as you go. You’ll see a toast notification at the top of the screen telling you as much and offering to let you continue taking screenshots or stop.

Here are some screenshots that I have taken so far:

Screen Capture (SkyDrive Photo Album)

Screen Capture (Picture Hub)

Screen Capture (Internet Explorer)

Screen Capture (Lock Screen)

Screen Capture (Start Screen)

Not too shabby at all!

The only downside is that your phone needs to be developer unlocked. There are a few options here:

• become a Windows Phone developer costing of $99,
• become a Windows Phone developer if you are studying through a university that is in partnership with Microsoft and have the fee waived,
• obtain a solution through ChevronWP7 Labs (when their website starts working again) for $10.