Have you tried Windows Media Encoder? It's a free download from Microsoft and allows your to encode/record the windows desktop for most cases.
It doesn't work with copyrighted, streamed data though, which is okay since it will limit you to public domain, non-rights managed, or self-created elearning methods.
If you maximize your browser to take the full-screen, and have a fairly powerful PC, this is a great way to create demos for creating your own elearning videos for using software, or capturing web-based things for presentation to others where network access is unavailable.
