Fix Black/Gray Screen Issues with ShareX or Windows Screenshot Tools

The Problem

If you’re experiencing these frustrating screen capture issues on Windows 10:

• ShareX showing only black screens when capturing
• Windows Snipping Tool displaying gray screens instead of your content

The Solution

A fix is to terminate the Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) process by running this command in PowerShell or Command Prompt with administrator rights:

taskkill /f /im dwm.exe

Executing this command should resolve the screen capture issues.

Why This Works

While Windows prevents you from actually killing the Desktop Window Manager (it’s a critical system process), the attempt to terminate it seems to reset something in the display rendering pipeline that fixes the capture issues.

Notes

• No need to restart your computer