QR Codes are a convenient way to share Internet links, but scanning them on a PC is not the easiest. A new Windows feature currently in development should soon make things easier.
THE quick response code, more commonly called QR Code, saw their advent with the democratization of the smartphone, and more generally mobile devices equipped with a camera. These two-dimensional barcodes are indeed a very convenient way to share links and web addresses without the user having to write them manually, which can be very tedious and error-prone. QR Codes have therefore quickly become omnipresent in public places and businesses, in order to offer visitors and customers an easy way to access information.
But the small black squares on a white background have also colonized more and more applications and online services on computers, which makes their use more difficult. It is impossible to use your PC’s webcam to read them, and using a phone to scan them then send the link to your computer is not the most practical. Fortunately, there are several methods and tips for reading QR Codes on PC and Mac, which we present to you in this article, but things could soon become even smoother on Windows thanks to a new function currently in development.
Spotted by the English-speaking Windows Latest sitewe owe this discovery to @PhantomOfEarth, a Twitter user (aka In this case, he identified a new button in the Windows 11 Screenshot application, simply titled “QR Code”, which should make it possible to detect and scan a QR Code present on a screenshot, and to directly open the page corresponding to the address contained in the pictogram.
This simple little addition should therefore prove particularly useful in the future, with the proliferation of QR Codes on the Web and particularly in online services where it is increasingly used as an authentication tool to connect a new device to one account. This function is still in the experimental phase and Microsoft has not yet officially communicated on the subject, and even less on a potential deployment date. You will therefore have to be patient and watch for future updates of the Screen Capture tool to identify the arrival of this new integrated function for reading QR Codes on Windows.