Out of the box, Windows 11 and 10 give you a way to record and share your games, as well as chat with your Xbox friends, manage system resources, and more while gaming. All of this is available through the Game Bar, also known as the Xbox Game Bar. But what if you don’t care about any of these features, and they’re just using up resources on your laptop?
Well, you can disable the Game Bar app, though Microsoft doesn’t really want you to. Let’s take a look at how.
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How to disable the Game Bar in Windows 11
In Windows 11, the Game Bar can’t be disabled without being uninstalled altogether, and you can’t uninstall it normally (more on that below). However, you can stop it from using resources in the background.
- Open the Settings app.
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Choose System from the sidebar.
In older versions of Windows 11, the Xbox Game Bar is listed in the Apps section on a page called Installed apps.
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Click System components.
- Find the Game Bar.
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Click the ellipsis button on the right and choose Advanced options.
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Under Background apps permissions, click the dropdown menu and choose Never.
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Scroll down to Terminate and click the button to stop the app.
- Choose Gaming from the Settings sidebar.
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Click Game Bar.
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Turn off the toggle labeled Allow your controller to open Game Bar.
This will stop the Xbox Game Bar from running in the background, and it will also prevent you from accidentally opening the app using a controller. However, you’ll still be able to launch the Xbox Game Bar using the Windows + G keyboard shortcut.
How to disable the Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10
In Windows 10, it’s a lot easier to disable the Game Bar altogether.
- Open the Settings app.
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Choose the Gaming section.
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Turn off the toggle that starts with Enable Xbox Game Bar.
This will disable the Xbox Game Bar entirely, so you won’t be able to bring it up with a keyboard shortcut or a controller. However, the app will remain on your PC.
How to uninstall the Game Bar completely
If you want the Xbox Game Bar to be completely gone from your computer, you can uninstall it using Windows Terminal and PowerShell. These steps work in Windows 11 and 10 alike.
- Open Windows Terminal (you can find it in the Start menu).
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Enter the following command and press Enter.
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
- The process should only take a few seconds. Verify that the Xbox Game Bar no longer shows up in your app list, then close Windows PowerShell.
On Windows 11, this is the only way to disable the Game Bar completely, but on Windows 10, you can just disable the feature in the Settings app as shown above.
How to re-enable the Xbox Game Bar
If you regret disabling the Xbox Game Bar, you can easily turn it back on by heading back to the pages mentioned above and changing the options back to their default setting. If you completely uninstalled the Xbox Game Bar, you can always reinstall it from the Microsoft Store.
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