need to prevent gamebar from opening ever under any circumstances (windows 11)

Question

Windows 11. I hate overlays, I hate the gamebar more than any overlay I've ever had to turn off, and I can't figure out how to turn it off. How do I make it go away and never comeback? I tried unstalling it but then windows wouldn't stop telling me it couldn't find it so I had to reinstall it. It keeps popping up when I press the xbox button on my fightstick controller, which is very easy to do by accident. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off "open when xbox button is pressed" though. But there must be a way so how do I do this?

Answer 1

Hello Gwen Sutton,

Good news, there is a single toggle for exactly that — the controller-button trigger has its own switch and it's separate from uninstalling Game Bar (which, as you found out, just makes Windows nag).

Open Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar. Turn off "Open Xbox Game Bar using this button on a controller."

That alone stops the Xbox button on your fightstick from launching it. You can leave Game Bar installed so Windows stops complaining.

If you also want Win+G to do nothing (so it can never pop up by any means), the cleanest way is the registry — open Registry Editor and set:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR > AppCaptureEnabled = 0 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\GameConfigStore > GameDVR_Enabled = 0

Sign out and back in (or reboot) and Game Bar will no longer launch from anywhere, while the app itself stays installed so Windows doesn't keep looking for it.

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