Vista Snipping Tool

My computer takes approximately 50 seconds to open Vista’s Snipping Tool. About 20 seconds after starting the program the computer appears to be frozen until the snipping tool program fully opens about 30 seconds later. Is this normal? I have tried turning off the Tablet PC install and then turning it back on in hopes for a reinstall of the snipping tool but it didn’t help the program open time. All other program’s on my notebook open in respectable times so I cannot figure out what might be the problem. I have Vista home premium SP1 installed on my HP Notebook noted in my sig.

Any help or info about speeding up the program open time would be appreciated.

Thanks, Don

 

I dont know how to speed it up, but I can offer an alternative. I personally didnt see the tool as being super innovative. I still prefer to do a print screen function to capture the screen and then paste it into an image editing/viewing software like ifranview (super light on resources and has alot of save options)

Doing this you get the entire screen and not just some cutout, and if you only wanted a small section you can easily crop it inside of ifranview and it looks more professional

 

That happens to me too, that's why I just use IrfanView to take care of all my screen shots. The snipping tool would be nice, but there is no reason for it to take that long to load.

 

Pops right up for me.

 

I wonder if there is a service or background app that should be running, and is getting started up every time we try to load the tool.

 

That is what I was thinking also but I was hopeing someone knew the answer. I don't need to use the tool often so I can wait if I have to but issues like this really bug me. I am not sure if i am dedicated enough to finding the answer to work through the list of services or apps.

 

The snipping tool is one of those "extras" that is enabled/disabled via the "Turn Windows features on or off" under Control Panel - Programs and Features. The associated Service is the Tablet PC Input Service.

 

The "Tablet PC Input Service" is what is needed for the Snipping tool to work. I think it is MUCH better than having to use than the old PrintScreen and some extra app to then modify the capture. The various modes it gives are really nice. Entire screen, single window, user defined rectangle, and free form. Then the markup tools that are available after the snip allows you to annotate or highlight it.

Gary

 

Funny I left the Tablet PC service enabled to try out the snipping tool. I still have not tried it -lol. I just print screen and paste into paint, or photoshop if I want to get fancy. Paint works like a charm and is very fast. I think I am gonna nuke the tablet pc service.

 

The Snipping Tool works it is just that it takes so blasted long to load, 50 seconds. The "Tablet PC Input Service" is "Started, Automatic" as well are its dependencies, "Remote Procedure Call", "DCOM Server Process Launcher" (I turned this on just to be sure), and "Plug and Play".

There is no problem with the function of the Snipping Tool just the Looong load time.

 

You can set the priority of snipping tool to "high"

 

You should try it first. It saves a step in that you don't have to start another app like paint. And it has all of the functionality that paint gave you to "get fancy".

Gary

 

You're absolutely right I should try it... I just never remember too. :\

 

It takes less than 2 seconds from the time I click on the shortcut to the snipping tool on my taskbar until the time it is up and ready to clip. YMMV.

 

So I turned on the tablet toolbar, and then opened the tablet input panel. Then minimized the input panel, and now the snipping tool opens instantly. Without the tablet stuff open it takes nearly a minute to open every time.

 

I don't have any tablet toolbar, open or otherwise. I simply have a custom toolbar upon which I have placed the shortcut to the snipping tool.

 

Also try turning UAC off, if you have it on

 

That got turned off day one.

 

OK, this is where I stand at the present time:

1. Windows features on or off
(selected) Tablet PC Optional Components

2. "Tablet PC Input Service" – “enabled or disabled” doesn’t matter which as long as the “Tablet PC Optional Components” in 1 above are installed. Snipping tool opens in both cases but always takes approximately 1 minute.

3. McGrady
Set the priority of snipping tool to "high" but did not make a difference.

4. Sac9700
So I turned on the tablet toolbar, and then opened the tablet input panel. Then minimized the input panel, and now the snipping tool opens instantly. – Works the same for me but opening the Tablet Input Panel takes a minute also.

5. flipfire
Also try turning UAC off, if you have it on – Turning UAC OFF didn’t make a difference.

I installed SnagIt that a friend had, just to try, and it works well but I would still like to know why the Snipping Tool doesn't work as it should for me or for Sac9700 for that matter.

 

you can add it to the startup programs list so that it loads in the background. Many programs load you may not know about, so knock a few of those out and add this in, so when you go to use it, its already loaded.

 

No offense, but adding 60 seconds to my boot time is not an option for a rarely used tool.

Thanks anyway.

 

It wont add 60 seconds to your boot time, your waiting 60 seconds to use the tool. If its running at startup your computer will be running while its still loading but since your not waiting to use the tool itself you would never know.

Like I said you would probably be surprised to see how many programs are already loading at startup and you are not waiting on all of them before your computer is booted, and since I suggested knocking some of those out you could end up gaining less load time as a result.

I have like 15+ programs blocked on my laptop and I am a power user who doesn't install any bloat ware or misc apps.

msconfig is the built in tool to block the stuff, go look for yourself and see all the junk your loading, heck you may find some spyware or bloatware while your at it and that could be the cause of your troubles in the first place.

 

I appreciate your insight, I really do, however, I have already cleaned out the programs that start on boot (9 apps / 7 services). The problem with this program is not just that it takes 60 seconds to be functional, but rather it all but freezes the system while it is loading. What I mean by that is the mouse is locked in place, so you are unable to do anything. Not sure if it actually stops or slows anything else, but it does prevent you from doing anything at all. Now if it were possible to have it start very early on before I would ever be able to do anything anyway, then that may be an option.

Update: I opened the Adjust Clock display so that I could see the seconds display, and I clicked the Snipping Tool at 9:07:45 and the seconds stopped changing, until a flip to 9:08:00 and then frozen again until 9:08:45 when the Snipping Tool was finally available. So apparently it is stopping processes from running.

Update 2: I just tried a similar test with Task Manager open. I went to the performance tab so that I could see the CPU and Memory History graphs (that are set to refresh every 1 second) and the moment I clicked the Snipping Tool they stopped, until about 15 seconds in when there was a single update to the graphs, and then nothing for the next 45 seconds. At that point, I was hoping to see that the graphs would be updated with that complete missing 60 seconds of time, but it wasn't. It just continued on as though nothing had happened.

As I continue this discussion, it is now making me more and more curious as to why this is happening. Is it possible to update the Snipping Tool? Maybe it's a bug in the version that I have installed,

 

I'm not sure if there is even another version to upgrade to. I do know that when I launch the snipping tool it only takes about 5 seconds to display the window and let me select something.

Have you tried booting in safe mode, just to see how it starts with little to no other programs/services running in the background?

 

This may very well be the issue here. What 9 apps and 7 services?

Did you set any services to manual, that were automatic? If so, start the snipping tool and then in the list of services look at the once marked as manual and see if any of them are started. If so turn that service to automatic and restart. Load the snipping tool again and see if that fixes things.

Gary

 

I hardly think any of these solutions offered are very good ones. I would think there is some kind of software conflict, but none I can really think up of off the top of my head. These kind of problems are pretty much a crapshoot since there are far and few examples to study.

 

booboo12 - I haven't tried booting into safe mode to test, because honestly I didn't care enough to spend the time trying, but now that I'm more curious than anything, I will test just to see.

ScuderiaConchiglia - You may be on to something. I don't have the list here, as I'm in the office today, but will take a look and test tonight or this weekend.

Thanks again for your assistance.

 

Well, I didn't clean out any services or apps so that is not my problem.

I did boot into safe mode as booboo12 suggested. Guess what, the Snipping Tool opens as it should in a couple seconds. I made a list of running services and apps in safe mode and will try to work through the services and apps in normal mode to see if I can find the offending prog / service.

Like Sac, I don't know how much longer I will work at this but my curiosity has got the best of me at the present. I can't do much more now as my battery only has 10% left.

We are without power at the moment as PGE is replacing a transformer in our neighborhood. I miss my DSL also, connecting to the net via dial-up modem, better than nothing.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. I noticed that SAC9700 and I have HP notebooks, I am beginning to suspect that one of HP's special apps that come with their notebooks may be the culprit and will begin looking there first.

 

I have an HP, too; however, I have uninstalled all the HP software except for the HP Quick Launch Buttons

 

OK, I found the solution (at least for me). I went into msconfig / Startup, and disabled HP QuickPlay, and then rebooted. My snipping tool now starts all but instantly.

For me this is an acceptable solution as those buttons drive me crazy anyway.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

Ha see after all the doubt my solution was the right one all along.

 

Worked for me also. I had a feeling that it was one of HP's programs but didn't have time to investigate further.

Thanks everyone, looks like the problem is resloved.

 

There is frequently a plethora of superfluous debris in the StartUp list.

 

I had the same problem, but not it's solved. I had to turn on the tablet PC settings. =]

I also turned off the HP quickplay thing. Yay.

 

I appreciate your help, but I did not add it to start up like you recommended, I removed another program from startup that was causing conflict.

 

Glad it worked for you. It took me quite a while disabling and re-enabling software and services and rebooting until I finally found it.

 

Apparently Tablet PC Input Service is not required by the Snipping Tool. I have been using the Snipping Tool, even though I set Tablet PC Input Service to "disabled".

I did read a report from a user who said that under low-free-memory conditions Snipping Tool might take a long time to load if Tablet PC Input Service is disabled. I haven't been able to reproduce that, but maybe I haven't been using enough memory.

In any event, so far I am using Snipping Tool even though Tablet PC Input Service is "disabled".

 

Confirmed on my Vista Home Premium (SP1) PC. I do have the optional Windows components for Tablet services installed, but stopped and disabled the actual service and the snipping tool continues to function. Even after a reboot. I am leaving the service started as it appears to be harmless, takes few resources, and perhaps helps the availability of this tool.

 

Confirmed here too, on Vista Ultimate. I wonder where this urban legend originated???

Gary

 

It may be because the Snipping Tool requires the Tablet PC software to be installed, since it's part of that package, so people have assumed that all related services need to run. However as we are finding, Snipping Tool doesn't seem to require the Tablet PC Input Service to run.

 

I do have a vague recollection of having stopped the service long ago and restarting it because of experiencing delays and hangs when trying to use the snipping tool.

Not a big deal either way; the service is not very resource-intensive, so stop it or leave it. If you do stop it an the tool hangs, restart the service.

 

I have the same problem using My HP notbook, yet my other desktop which is not HP the snipping tool is fast to load I like the tool and would apreciate some help

 

^^ same problem as in OP?
. your HP model?
. OS? SP1? uptodate?

cheers ...