ScreenParts for Windows

Because it lacked any kind of real help feature, our first impression of this free utility was not a good one. But after we played around with it for a few minutes, it proved to be a decent screen capture tool.

Once activated, ScreenParts introduced a transparent window to our desktop. We found that we could easily resize the window by dragging and dropping the corners, but it wasn't quite clear where to go from there. A right-click revealed a menu that contained options for resizing the window, resetting the capture counter, and configuring the capture timer. In Settings, you can choose the capture window's background, foreground, and border colors; a feature that is solely for aesthetic purposes and doesn't improve functionality. We were also able to choose the destination and image formats for screen captures, a nice touch, especially for a freeware tool. The program doesn't really tell you how to take a picture, but through trial and error we found you just had to double-click the window. A new window quickly popped up to enter "save as" information. Sure enough, our screen capture appeared in our designated spot.

Even without a Help file, novices should find ScreenParts easy to use. If you're looking for a quick way to take basic screenshots, this tool has more options than Print Screen and it doesn't cost you anything.