If you try to take a screenshot in Windows 7 Media center by pressing the Print Screen key you will just end up with a black image.
Fortunately the fix is just a quick registry tweak away.
First close the Media Center application and then click the Start Orb, type Regedit and then press Enter and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\ Service\Video
Then just add a DWORD called EnablePrintScreen and change its value to 1.
Close Regedit and then restart the Media Center application.
I tested this on Windows 7 x64 Media Center.
Source: Tech Hail
Michael Lane's Technology Blog 
Thanks for this, works perfectly! Now I just want a way to autosave the captured picture to a file, so I don’t have to quit/minimize Media Center everytime I capture a picture.
I followed this to the T and it did not work for me on my Windows 7. The screen shot looked exactly like yours, so not sure what happened. I clicked the screen shot and pasted it in Word and also tried PS which usually works and I still get the black image. Any ideas?
Did you restart the Media Center application / or reboot?
Yeah, this did not work for me either under Windows 7 (64-bit). I restarted my PC after adding the registry key and it still shows a black screen when capturing the screen with PrintScreen.
Thank you!! This worked for me on Windows 7 (64-bit). It’s weird that it’s working for some but not others.
Thanks! Under OS Windows 8.1 Professional (x64), it, also, works.
This works OK, use the 32 bit DWord!
Thanks for the tip, but it doesn’t work for my purposes. I tried this with Windows 8.1 x64. It looks like this registry change shuts down the PC’s ability to show PlayReady protected materials. So it would work for taking shots of non-protected materials, but I completely lose my ability to watch or record premium TV.
Thanks for the reply – I hadn’t thought about that before – that makes sense. 🙂
This worked for my Windows 8.1 system. Thanks!
Great, thanks Ruben 🙂