How enable or disable the Game Bar in Windows 10

The Game Bar in Windows 10 is either going to be useful or just plain irritating depending on your point of view. It’s a feature added back in Windows 8 as part of the closer integration between Xbox and Windows and was further enhanced in Windows 10. If you don’t want the feature or find the constant popup annoying, this post will show you how to disable it.

I do play the occasional game when I have time and enjoy the challenge. Working at Dave’s Computers in New Jersey doesn’t give me much free time though. However, I don’t enjoy the Game Bar in Windows 10. I don’t use an Xbox, I don’t want to capture or share my games and I certainly don’t want to see a popup every time I open a game. If you’re the same, here is how to enable or disable the Game Bar in Windows 10.

Disable the Game Bar in Windows 10

The Game Bar annoyingly comes enabled by default and there is no clear way to disable it. Unless you’re like me and like experimenting with how things work.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Settings.
2. Select Gaming.
3. Turn off ‘Record game clips, screenshots and broadcast using Game Bar.
4. Select Captures from the left menu.
5. Toggle Off Record in the background while playing a game and Record audio when I record a game.

This should disable the Game Bar in Windows 10 but it doesn’t always work. For some reason, these settings can be intermittent. They work one minute and not the next. Also, when you perform a Windows update that affects the Game Bar, all these settings are reset.

You can use the registry to disable Game Bar in Windows 10 if you prefer.

1. Type ‘regedit’ into the Windows Search box and select Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR.
3. Change the AppCaptureEnabled DWORD value to 0 to turn it off.
4. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\GameConfigStore.
5. Change the GameDVR_Enabled DWORD value to 0 to turn it off.

If you change your mind at a later date, just change those two settings to 1 to enable it again.

You can also remove the Game Bar altogether if you want to take it further. It will come back during a Windows Update that adds features though.

1. Type ‘power’ into the Windows Search Box, right click PowerShell and select Open a Windows PowerShell as an administrator.
2. Type or paste ‘Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage’ and hit Enter.

This removes the entire Windows Store package for the Game Bar.

The Windows Game Bar is a little annoyance but they can quickly become bigger annoyances when left alone. If you have any issues removing or replace it, bring your computer to Dave’s Computers in New Jersey and we’ll take care of it for you.