How To Take An Ingame Zune Screenshot (developers)

After struggling for a couple days trying to figure this out, I’ve finally figure out how to take an ingame screenshot from a Zune.

Not too long(years’) ago I was playing around with programming a TI-83. One of the features that TI gave you, was the ability to look at the devices’ screen from within the windows software. So I thought to myself, there has to be a way to do it from Visual Studio and the Zune.

As it turns out, there is a way. It all takes place in the XNA Game Studio Device Center.

The first step (and I’m sure you already did it) is to make sure your device is added to the XNA Game Studio Center console.

If your device hasn’t been added yet, you’ll need to connect your Zune (make sure the Zune software isn’t running) and add it. Once it’s added, your console should have your device listed with a green check mark.

Now that your device is added, if you right click on your device, you will notice it says you can take a screen capture. How interesting. But, the only way you can, is if you started the program from within Visual Studio.

Keep your XNA device center open for now. Now open you Visual Studio project and hit F5, to start debugging. It will start your program for you on its own. This actually resolves an issue I had with testing my programs. Now instead of hitting exit after each upload, I can just run the debugger and test the programs that way. No more rebooting constantly.

Once your program is running, you can go back to the XNA Game Studio Device Center and right click your device and take a screenshot. I took all association away from the PNG file, as every time it takes a screenshot, it will try and launch the picture.

There you have it, now you know how to take an ingame Zune screenshot. I can only guess this will work the same way if you were programming for the XBOX.