HyperSnap-DX

graphic
HyperSnap v.4 to v.6 Frequently Asked Questions
For the old HyperSnap ver. 3.xx FAQ list please click here.

If you don't find the answer to your question on the list below, please visit also HyperSnap technical support forum!

Table of Contents

Installation, license and startup issues:

Technical Problems

DVD or Video Screen Capture

Why HyperSnap does not accept my old license key?

HyperSnap v.6 needs a new license key, a different one from ver. 3 or 4 key. Our upgrades between the major version numbers (like 4 -> 5) require a purchase of a another license at a cost that is usually less than 50% of a new purchase.. Minor upgrades, like 5.42 to 5.63 are free.

To purchase the upgrade license, visit the Hyperionics Online Store.

How to enter HyperSnap license, which I received by email? Or will you send me a CD with a fully licensed copy of HyperSnap?

The "registered" copy of HyperSnap is the same one that you use for evaluation. You only need to enter your license key into it to convert it to a fully functional copy. This method of selling has an advantage for you: if we release a newer version 5 (for example, you have version 5.01 and we release 5.10) you may upgrade for free by simply downloading the newer one and installing it over the old ver. 5.01. If we sent the full version on CDs, we would not be able to ship you a new CD with each program update. This free upgrade policy is valid for as long as HyperSnap version number is 4.something.

To enter HyperSnaplicense received by email, do this:

  1. Find the "### Begin License ###" text in your message with the key. Press and hold the Left Mouse Button (LBM) over this line.
  2. Move your mouse down, still holding the LBM, until you find and pass the line with "### End License ###" text. Note that the text that you move over with LBM pressed, gets marked, usually with black color (but some email programs may use different colors for this).
  3. Release the LBM when all of the text between "### Begin License ###" and "### End License ###" lines is marked.
  4. Copy this text to Windows clipboard. You can do this in several ways, for example by pressing Ctrl+Insert keys on the keyboard, or by selecting "Edit/Copy" from the menu of your email program. Yet another way of copying text is to click your RIGHT mouse button over the marked text, and selecting "Copy" from the menu that pops up.
  5. Click on HyperSnap window, if it is displayed elsewhere on the screen, or on its button in Windows taskbar (at the bottom of the screen). Or, if HyperSnap is not started yet, start it from your shortcut on the desktop or in Windows "Start" menu.
  6. Immediately after the click or "Start" above, HyperSnap will find your license and reply "Thank you...". It will also prompt you to save the license on a floppy disk as a backup.

Every copy of HyperSnap I download is corrupt, I can't install or...
...even if it installs, HyperSnap says that is currupt.
Most probably your system is infected with a computer virus, which attaches itself to HyperSnap installer or the actual program. Unlike other software, HyperSnap checks its own integrity before running, and refuses to run if it was changed by a virus or some other means. So please get yourself a good virus checker (e.g. VirusScan from McAfee) and check your system, then clean it from viruses.

Note: recently we have a report of a virus corrupting HyperSnap and HyperCam (and other programs), which is not detected by McAfee scanner. It is called "CIH Space Filler" or something similar. We were told that it can be detected with VET virus scanner from http://www.vet.com.au One user told us, that VET in fact detected and reported the virus correctly, but was unable to clean it up completely. He subsequently tried the latest version of Norton Anti-Virus product to clean it. We have no report if he did succeed or not.

Another virus recently reported and not detected by popular anti-virus programs is Win95.CIM. We are told that AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) can detect and remove it. The Toolkit can be downloaded from http://www.avp.ch or http://www.avp.com .

Another report of anti-virus program to clean Win95/CIH virus:

Greg,

Thanks for all your help! I was successful in detecting and correcting the Win95/CIH virus on all of the infected files on my system. I then again downloaded HyperSnap from your site and it worked without a problem.

I used TBAV (ThunderBYTE Anti Virus ) for Windows 95 http://www.thunderbyte.nl to confirm that I indeed had this virus. I then used Norton AntiVirus Command-Line Scanner (NAVC) to repair each infected file. I found the instructions to use and download NAVC at http://help.mindspring.com/modules/00800/00843.htm

Thanks again!

Other possible causes of such behaviour would be a disk error (bad sector on a disk, or something). If you find out your system to be clean of viruses, run SCANDISK program (standard Windows 98 and 98 component) with a full surface scan to identify and mark out all bad sectors. When all of the above is done, download a fresh copy of HyperSnap, best from Hyperionics web site directly, and install.

 

HyperSnap 6 setup program installation switches

HyperSnap ver. 6 setup program (normally named HS6Setup.exe) supports the following command line switches for silent installation:

-s    silent installation to default directory

[folder path]    silent installation to specified folder.

-runafter   run HyperSnap program after installation is finished

-allusers   install for all users (must be run under administrative account)

-autostart    turn on automatic start of HyperSnap with Windows

-nodeskico    do not install desktop icon.

To make HyperSnap always start (or auto-start) minimized...
Then, select "Options" menu from HyperSnap window, and then "Startup and Tray Icon..." item under that menu. You can turn on or off the following options there:

  • Auto Start HyperSnap with Windows
  • Always start minimized
  • Display the small tray icon only, not task bar button, when minimized.

How to install HyperSnap on a computer that is not on network/Internet?

If you have a CD burner or other high capacity removable media in both computers, download and copy HyperSnap setup file (HS6Setup.exe) form this site to that disk, move to the non-networked computer and install from this CD/disk. Your license file may be transferred on the same disk or on a floppy.

If you later receive HyperSnap license key via email, simply copy that email text to a text file on a floppy disk, open the same file on the other computer and paste your key from there.

Running HyperSnap on Linux

Hyperionics does not provide any Linux software at this time, nor do we support our software under Linux. However, here is an article from one of our customers, who successfully installed and run HyperSnap under Linux:

HyperSnap 3.64.02 and Linux
Dr Tony Young, Langton Road, Blackbutt, Australia (19 Jan 2003)

Version 3.64.02 of HyperSnap has now been successfully run on my SuSE v8 Linux OS using Wine.  Given that all the HyperSnap files (with the exception of any Windows “help.exe” files) reside in the HyperSnap folder, the method outlined below should work on any distribution with Wine installed.  My method to start HyperSnap has been to place a 'Wine link icon' on the KDE desktop. The required exe file is found using the KDE file manager and then dragged and dropped onto the Wine icon. 

HyperSnap appears to run very well under Wine-Linux,although the “Help” folders cannot be accessed correctly even when winhelp32.exe is copied to the HyperSnap folder.  This is a  minor nuisance because HyperSnap is extremely intuitive and almost self-explanatory.  (I am aware Ksnapshot is available as a screen capture utility under KDE window manager, however I think that HyperSnap is preferable as it has far more options and provides better user flexibility.)

To get HyperSnap running under Linux, I used the method as outlined below, but I am sure others will find better ways of doing it.

1.  The  half meg compressed installation file for Hypersnap would not install correctly on top of Wine.  The installation would start, but it would then shut down because it did not have permission to construct the necessary folder.  This of course was because I was not working in superuser/root.  I am sure a full installation with Wine would be possible and preferable, and this could be done by logging in as superuser/root before installation.  However, I used an alternative option as outlined in step 2.

2.  I also run Win4Lin, and HyperSnap installed perfectly in every respect in the Windows emulation system: unfortunately, Hypersnap is then restricted to the emulated Win98SE desktop and cannot “look outside" that region. Because I wanted Hypersnap to work in native Linux, I needed to have the HyperSnap files in the Linux work space.  So, after installing and registering the software in the Win4Lin 98SE desktop, I next created a HySnapDX folder in my Home directory and then moved/copied the HyperSnap files from Win98SE across into the Linux directory.

3.  The KDE file manager was then used to open up the HySnapDX folder and the icon of the hsdx.exe file was dragged and dropped onto the desktop Wine icon.  The Wine wrapper window then appeared followed by the Hypersnap window.

Final Notes:  I have not tested all aspects of the HyperSnap software as now running in the Wine-Linux situation, but preliminary results show that regional and Window screen captures are fully functional, as well as cropping after capture.  One very interesting aspect is that although HyperSnap installed under Win4Lin cannot look across into Linux, the reverse is not true and HyperSnap under Wine-Linux can look across into Win98SE running under Win4Lin and capture anything in that OS desktop: a very, very nice side benefit.  Provided later versions of HyperSnap continue to place all required operational exe, dll and auxillary files in the single HyperSnap folder, it is very likely that they also will run in the Wine-Linux desktop.

Spyware Doctor displays a warning "Keylogger Guard prevented HyprSnap6.exe from loading a system-wide keyboard monitor" when HyperSnap is started or exited, or even shuts-down HyperSnap

If you have Spyware Doctor, activated its OnGuard feature and set Keylogger Guard to high, then enable “Special Capture” in HyperSnap under Capture menu, you'll get a warning of a system-wide keyboard monitor in HyperSnap, and Spyware Doctor may shut down HyperSnap. There are 3 ways to work around this difficulty:

  1. If you don’t capture game screens, simply go to Capture/Capture Settings menu, click “Enable Special Capture…” item and remove check-marks from the top 2 or 3 check-boxes, then click OK. Special Capture feature and the keyboard hook is then disabled.
  2. If you don’t want to turn off Special Capture in HyperSnap, add HyperSnap executable file (HprSnap5.exe for ver. 5, HprSnap6.exe for version 6) to Key Logger Guard “Allow the following applications to monitor keystrokes” box. This solves the problem.
  3. Another way to allow HyperSnap monitor keystrokes in “Special Capture” mode is to set “Keylogger Guard” to “Medium” sensitivity instead of to “High”.

More information: Special Capture is for capturing computer games, that sometimes do not react to keys pressed like normal programs. HyperSnap installs a so called “system hook” to detect when Print Screen or Scroll Lock key is pressed, which signals that the game operator requires a screen capture. Without it capturing screens from some games would not be possible. This keyboard hook is not “logging” anything, it only sits and waits for the special capture hot keys pressed to tell HyperSnap to make a screen capture.

Hot keys do not work or HyperSnap must be on top for capture keys to work

If you suddenly find out that your capture hot keys (such as Ctrl+Shift+R for "Region" capture, or whatever you customized them to be), or maybe works only when HyperSnap is the active, top level window - you probably disabled hot keys feature.

Enabled/disabled state is controlled by the "Enable Hot Keys" button in the top toolbar, which looks like this:
              or       
When this button is depressed, hot keys are active, if it is popped up (not pressed), hot keys are inactive. In addition, you may activate hot keys and configure them (select what key does what) under Options/Configure Hot Keys menu of HyperSnap.

How to make multiple captures without exiting a game/other program to save or print them.
Please enable the "Quick Save" or "Quick Print" (or both if you want) options under the "Capture/Capture Settings" menu of HyperSnap. Now, every picture you capture will be auto-saved or printed. If you enable "Quick Save", which I recommend most, you can make it to auto-number the files saved like snap001.bmp, snap002.bmp etc., for each press of the capture hot key. Then, when done playing and capturing, return to HyperSnap window and review your captures by pressing Page Up and Page Down keys. Please read more about these options in HyperSnap help file.

HyperSnap connects periodically to the Internet...What info does it send?

HyperSnap does not send any information from the user's machine to the Internet. It only reads a text file from Hyperionics web site, by default once every 7 days, to tell you if there is a new version of this program. You can change the frequency or disable this check under "Help/Check for a New Version" menu.

"Failed to create empty document" error when starting HyperSnap

This error may happen if you have an old version of Windows and never installed Internet Explorer 4 or later. Your  system may have an old version of Microsoft "Common Controls"  DLL (comctl32.dll). You can update this DLL, without installing the latest IE - please download the following Microsoft updater: 

http://www.hyperionics.com/downloads/50comupd.exe

then run it to install updated DLL, reboot your machine if/when prompted.

My screen capture graphics files are of bad quality (extra dots, "gray cast" etc.)

Most probably you are saving your images in JPEG format (.jpg). JPEG is a "lossy compression" format, designed mainly for real life photos, not for sharp screen capture images. It sacrifices some image quality to better compress graphics files, make them smaller on a disk and load faster over the Internet. If you must use JPEG for some reason, increase the "Quality Factor" setting on HyperSnap "Save As" window, to something like 90% or even 95%. The files will be bigger, but will look cleaner. Best, do not use JPEG files (or TIFF files with JPEG compression) at all. Instead, use either BMP format, which does not compress graphics, but preserves 100% quality, or PNG format, which does both good compression, and preserves 100% quality.

HyperSnap does not save the settings under "Capture Settings/Crop & Scale" when you exit and restart the program

This is by design, when we had the program save these settings, some people would set them, forget about it, then later complain that HyperSnap was broken, because it was scaling or cropping images unexpectedly. Now, to have these settings saved, you have to run the program with an additional command line parameter: -ra (stands for Restore Advanced settings), e.g. your command to start he program could look like this:

"C:\Program Files\HyperSnap 5\HprSnap5.exe" -ra

How to capture image from a movie (Media Player, RealPlayer, DVD etc.)

Video playing on Windows machine, no matter if it comes from a movie file, Internet, VCD or DVD, can not be captured by regular screen capture methods, because it is usually playing in a hardware overlay. The overlay it almost as if there was another, smaller screen in front of your regular Windows desktop screen. The desktop contains in that place only the so called "overlay key color" - a solid block of color, usually black, blue, magenta or pink, but it can be anything.

A regular screen capture program will capture just that key color, which gives you a funny effect - if your movie is still playing, and your captured that key color into HyperSnap (or any other software) window, and you move that window so that it partly covers the movie player - you will see the movie through the part where this key color was. It seems as if your HyperSnap window had a "hole" and the movie shows through it. This is because the overlay hardware controller is programmed to display that movie everywhere where that key color is on the desktop.

How to deal with this problem? There are two methods. In some movie players (e.g. Windows Media Player, Real Player) you may disable "hardware acceleration" through their "settings" or "options" menu. This turns off the overlay use, the movie is played then normally, within Windows desktop and every screen capture program can get it.

Another way to turn off overlay use for video playback on most system is to disable "hardware acceleration" of your graphics controller in the following way:

- right click empty Windows screen, select "Properties" from the menu
- click "Settings" tab
- click "Advanced" button
- click "Troubleshoot" tab
- move the "Hardware acceleration" slider all the way to "None" and click OK buttons to close all “Display Properties” dialog boxes.
- if your media player was running, close it completely and restart. Now play your movie and try to capture them with any capture method or tool.

When finished with captures, you may want to restore “Hardware Acceleration” back to what it was before.

The other method (if you can't or don't want to disable the overlay) is to use HyperSnap "special capture" method, described below:

The video capture will work or not, depending on which video player software you are using, and if it uses DirectX or not. Here is the correct movie/DVD capture procedure to follow:

1. Enable "Special Capture" in HyperSnap under "Capture" menu. Click on that item and make sure that DirectX "Primary" and "Overlay" surfaces are turned on. Then click on OK button.

2. Run the movie/DVD player, pause the movie where you want to capture, click on the player window to make sure it is the front window, then press Scroll Lock key (HyperSnap special capture hot key).

3. Click on HyperSnap window and see what was captured. If you don't see the movie picture there, most probably your DVD player software does not use DirectX.

4. If you do see a picture in HyperSnap window, but it has incorrect proportions, or maybe is also repeated several times, please crop and scale image to correct proportions with the functions available under "Image" menu. If you must make a lot of such DVD captures, you may set the "Quick Crop & Scale" function under the "Capture/Capture Settings" menu in HyperSnap to perform this cropping and scaling automatically on each captured image. It will let you to auto- crop each image you capture (so that only one image remains) and then scale it to correct proportions. Please don't forget to turn this "Quick..." function off when done with DVD captures and trying to do regular Windows screen shots.

5. If the above does not work (you still get a full screen capture with some solid color where the DVD was, your DVD player program does not use DirectX, so HyperSnap can not capture from it.

I got an "Unknown Pixel Format" message when trying to capture from a DVD

I won't be able to support proprietary pixel formats like this in HyperSnap. The hardware manufacturers keep their specifications secret and refuse to provide any info on how to decode the pictures from them - only their hardware controllers can do this.

The only thing I can advice you, is to check all the "Settings" and "Options" menus/buttons in your DVD player, and see if you can find some setting to disable "Hardware Acceleration", "Optimized Video" or similar option in it. Then you should be able to capture images (restore this setting again after finished with captures, for smoother playback in regular video watching).

If you DVD player does not have such setting, try another DVD player program.

For ATI DVD players, you may also try this:

You may be able to temporarily turn off proprietary ATI's pixel format (usually MCAM), by editing a registry entry. Please attempt to do this only if you are an advanced computer user, and confident that you can edit and restore registry entries. Note that this may or may not work, I'm not making any warranties:

Run RegEdit program and try to find the registry keys under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Quadrant International, Inc.\Software Cinemaster\0.9\VideoDecoder

The 0.9 there was version number, there may be another, higher number now. If you find such key, try to look up "PerformanceClass" value. It defaults to 0x3 for the ATI version of this program, which uses the motion compensation hardware. Settings are 0-4, try using 4, then 0, 1 and 2, maybe something will work. You must completely exit and restart the ATI DVD player for a new setting to take place. Then follow HyperSnap DVD capture procedure.

How to capture pages longer then the screen (using Auto-scroll feature)

Please note: If you use Windows XP and HyperSnap 5 or newer, there is another method to capture more than available screen space. It's called "extended active window" capture function, and allows you to define how big to make a window captured - optionally can be both much wider and much higher than the screen. Then you may crop from that capture whatever you want inside HyperSnap window.

Here is how to use auto-scroll capture:

For HyperSnap ver. 6.10 and newer:

  1. Set your other window with a vertical scroll bar, that you want to capture with auto-scroll, to the top of the page, or a place where you want to start capturing.
  2. Go to HyperSnap window and click on "Capture" menu and select "Entire Page with Scrolling" item - or use hot key shortcut by pressing Ctrl+Shift+S. HyperSnap will disappear. Go with the mouse cursor over the window that you want to capture with auto-scroll. Click inside of that window (not on a scroll bar!) and observe how HyperSnap scrolls it while capturing. If you want to end the capture early, press Esc key, otherwise wait until it's done.

For HyperSnap versions older than 6.10:

  1. Set your other window with a vertical scroll bar, that you want to capture with auto-scroll, to the top of the page, or a place where you want to start capturing.
  2. Go to HyperSnap window and click on "Capture" menu and select "Capture Settings" item. Click on "Capture" tab, and then click the "Auto-scroll window during Window Capture" check box, to turn this option on. Click OK button.
  3. Select "Window" from the "Capture" menu - or use hot key shortcut by pressing Ctrl+Shift+W. HyperSnap will disappear. Go with the mouse cursor over the window that you want to capture with auto-scroll. Click inside of that window (not on a scroll bar!) and observe how HyperSnap scrolls it while capturing. If you want to end the capture early, press Esc key, otherwise wait until it's done.

Note: Auto-Scroll does not work for all applications that have a vertical scroll bar. Some applications or web pages may have animated or non-scrolling parts, which prevent HyperSnap from correctly "stitching" captured bitmaps. Main WEB browsers (Netscape and MS Internet Explorer) are known to be working well with auto-scroll, as well as many other programs that we tested.

Note: there is no horizontal auto-scroll. If you have something to capture, that is WIDER than your screen, try first switching your machine into a higher resolution, e.g. 1024x768, or even 1280x1024 (some machines will even go higher). If that is not enough, capture the image in separate vertical strips, and assemble it into one bitmap with HyperSnap or other image editor - or use "Extended Active Window" capture on Windows XP or newer.

Hidden "Auto-Scroll Region" command of HyperSnap may auto-scroll some windows that won't scroll normally

Some windows with a vertical scroll bars will not works with regular "auto-scroll window" command described above - e.g. the SAP accounting system windows probably will not auto-scroll - they are not standard Windows applications, but something weird ported from Unix... A "hidden" feature of HyperSnap called "auto-scroll region" may work for them.

To use this feature (although it's cumbersome), you have first to set it up: click "View/Customize" menu, then on "Commands" tab scroll the "Categories" window down until you see "Toolbar Only" and click it. Then grab "Auto-Scroll Region" in "Commands" panel, drag it out and to the top toolbar of HyperSnap, drop it somewhere there. Now you have this command on the toolbar, click "Close" in the "Customize" window.

To use "Auto-Scroll Region", click that new button. HyperSnap should hide now. Outline a region that is entirely inside one window (e.g. a SAP window) and does not contain outer, non-scrolling parts of that window, like it's frame. You need to click on 2 opposite corners to outline what to capture and scroll. Then you need a 3rd click: it must be exactly on the down pointing button of the vertical scroll bar of that window. Now HyperSnap will try to scroll and capture.

You may try this on any window as a test (even the one that works fine with normal window auto-scroll). Once you understood this, try SAP windows. They may or may not work, can't promise 100%, they are weird..

If you need a system-wide hot key for this function, you may set it starting with ver. 6.10.00, by using View/Customize menu, Keyboard tab - in Category find "Toolbar Only", highlight Auto-Scroll Region command and assign it any keyboard shortcut you want. It will also become a hot key now, and will be remembered as you exit and restart HyperSnap.

Image resolution issues - e.g. can HyperSnap capture images at 300 dpi resolution?

A screen capture program like HyperSnap can only capture images at the resolution the screen displays them. There are about 96 pixels per inch on a typical monitor, and that's what you get on your screen captured images. To make resolution higher HyperSnap would have to somehow invent and insert dots in-between screen pixels - nothing that would really give you good results.

When you set the image resolution under "Image/Change Resolution" menu, you only tell other programs or printers how dense to display or print existing pixels of the bitmap. Let's say you captured something 3 inches wide and it is 96 dpi originally. Now if you change the resolution value of this bitmap to 300 dpi and print it, you will get an image only about 1 inch wide - becase the existing dots are printed denser.

Additionally, not all image file formats can save resolution value to a file. BMP, JPEG, PNG can save it, but GIF format was defined without a field to save this value. So if you change resolution in HyperSnap for any given image, then save it as GIF and read back - it will revert to a default of 96 dpi.

More information: How to save a screen captured image in 300 dpi and have it printed at the same size as original? It is possible, even though you will not see any better quality or more detail on such image. Simply use Image/Scale menu in HyperSnap to make the image 3 times bigger (scale factor 300%), then set under Image/Resolution the value of 300 dpi. Save the image into a graphics format that does support dpi value saving, like BMP, PNG or high-quality JPEG. Now when you print this picture from HyperSnap or other graphics format, it will still have the original size on paper. This may be needed only in some special applications that absolutely require the resolution value set to 300 dpi for some strange reason...

How to convert a folder full of BMP files into GIF format (or similar)

Important: use HyperSnap ver. 4.01.02 or later for the examples listed below. 

You may use Windows command line language and HyperSnap command line options. To convert just one file, let's say it's named snap.bmp, into snap.jpg you could type on the command line (MS-DOS or Command Prompt window):

    "C:\Program Files\HyperSnap 4\HprSnap" -open snap.bmp -save:jpg snap

Note the in he above command, the "C:\Program Files\HyperSnap 4" part should be replaced with the actual path to the folder where you copy of HyperSnap 4 (HprSnap.exe) is located.

The above will convert just one file, so it's not a big deal - you could do the same thing by simply opening a file in HyperSnap window, and saving it in a different format. How to convert all the files contained within a folder, if there are several hundreds of them? Here is the exact command syntax, without a lot of explanation:

    for %f in (*.bmp) do start/wait "C:\Program Files\HyperSnap 4\HprSnap" -open "%f" -save:gif "%f"

The "for" command will cause the other command, listed after the "do" keyword, to be repeated for each file that matches the name pattern inside () parenthesis, *.bmp in the example above. The %f parameter will be each time replaced by the actual file name that matches that pattern. As an extra precaution I enclosed %f in double quotes "%f" - this would be necessary if some file name contained spaces in it.

For more information about HyperSnap command line options (like -open and -save above) read HyperSnap help file, the "Advanced - Command Line Parameters" section. For more information about MS-DOS batch language and commands (like the "for" and "start/wait" above) - read the documentation and on-line help that comes with Windows.

Return to the Hyperionics Home Page.