Webcam#

While PrismDesk is running, the camera of the connected device shows up on the PC as an ordinary Windows camera called PrismDesk Camera. Any app that lists cameras can pick it.

The camera is part of PrismDesk Pro. With the free edition on the PC, the app says Using the device camera as a webcam is part of PrismDesk Pro. This host is running the free edition.

Turning it on#

On the PC, open the host window → Settings → Virtual camera, and check that Publish the camera of the device as a Windows virtual camera is on. It is on by default. The same section shows Virtual camera: registered with Windows once it is there.
On the device, connect as usual, then swipe left from the handle at the right edge of the picture for the control menu, and tap Camera. The button is there only while step 1 is on, and Android asks for camera permission the first time.
In the app on the PC, choose PrismDesk Camera.

The camera exists only while PrismDesk is running on the PC. Stopping the host removes the device from Windows; starting it puts it back.

Where each setting lives#


What the device captures (resolution, frame rate)	The Android app: Settings → Camera (Pro). Only what the camera actually reports is offered.
What Windows is offered (the resolution and frame rate other apps see)	The host window: Settings → Virtual camera → Output resolution.

Raising the capture side above what the host puts out only costs data and heat. Applying a new output resolution recreates the camera, so apps that were using it have to select it again.

Front and rear are switched from the same control menu — Front / Rear. The orientation of the picture follows the device by itself.

Using the device as a second monitor and as a camera at the same time works.

Verified#

Windows Camera app — the picture is there, which is the quickest way to check the camera at all.
Discord — works.

Other apps are expected to work the same way (it is a normal Media Foundation camera), but those are the two that have been tried.

The rear camera looks mirrored in Discord#

That is Discord, not PrismDesk. Discord mirrors your own self-view; the front camera looks mirrored for the same reason, and that is the giveaway. Nothing in the path flips the picture — front and rear both go out unmirrored, and that is what the person on the other end receives.

To check for yourself: open the Windows Camera app, select PrismDesk Camera, and point the rear camera at some text. If you can read it, the picture on the wire is the right way round.

We do not mirror it at the source, because that would send everyone else a backwards picture.

"PrismDesk Camera" is not in the list#

Is the host running? The camera only exists while it is.
Is the virtual camera turned on? The host window's Settings tab says registered with Windows, not registered, or off.
Was the app already open? Apps enumerate cameras when they start. Close it and open it again.
Something else on the PC can block the registration. We have seen a case where another program on the machine kept the virtual camera from being registered. If the host says it is on but Windows never lists it, that is the direction to look — and please open an issue so it can go on this page by name.

Photos will not save (`0xA00F424F` / `0x80270200`)#

This one is not PrismDesk. If the Windows Camera app fails to save a photo with 0xA00F424F <PhotoCaptureFileCreationFailed> (0x80270200), the second code is Windows' LIBRARY_E_NO_SAVE_LOCATION — the library has nowhere to save. It happens with no camera involved at all; it only looks like a PrismDesk problem because you were using our camera when you hit it.

It turns up on PCs whose user profile was carried over from another PC or another account: the library definitions still point at the previous user, while the folder itself and its permissions are perfectly fine.

The fix: in File Explorer, right-click Libraries in the navigation pane and choose Restore default libraries. (If Libraries is not shown: View → Navigation pane → Show libraries.) We have confirmed on a real machine that saving works again immediately afterwards.

If some libraries still fail, open the properties of that one library and use Restore Defaults — restoring the defaults does not rebuild a library you had added locations to.

Video itself — the preview, Discord, anything else — is unaffected by this error.

A camera app stops responding after the host is stopped or started#

Close the camera app before you stop or start the host. The PrismDesk camera lives and dies with the host, so stopping the host removes the camera device from Windows, and an app that is still holding it may not cope. On a real machine the Windows Camera app had to be forced to close. Changing the output resolution in the host window does the same thing. The host warns you first when an app is reading the camera.

Open the app again and select the camera again, and it comes back. How other apps behave in this situation has not been measured.