Microsoft’s free Windows Media Encoder is capable of recording the Windows desktop or a specific application, which you can then use to demo an application, website, or process in a visual format – often known as screencasting.

A popular commercial software package, Camtasia, also performs this function, however Windows Media Encoder does a good job, at no cost.

You can download Windows Media Encoder from Microsoft’s website at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx.

Once installed, start Windows Media Encoder and choose ‘Capture Screen’. This will launch a wizard which will guide you through the process of choosing your capture settings, including the quality of the file you want to create, and the source to capture – the entire desktop, or a specific application window.

Windows Media Encoder, New Session

If you want more control over the quality and file format settings, you can select not to start the capture at the end of the wizard, which will allow you to customise the configuration further before capturing.

Note that Windows Media Encoder will only capture the screen to Windows Media Video format – which is fine if you want to upload it to the Internet, but you may need to convert it to another format if you need to later edit the capture, or incorporate with another video.