ByeBye-GameBar

In an attempt to ensure as full of an experience as possible for new users upon first boot, Microsoft has been working on including a variety of features that should, in theory, remove the need for third-party utilities with costly licenses on top of the price already paid for the operating system.

While commendable, this approach lacks the modularity that its more transparent Unix-based counterparts are known for, making it difficult to uninstall components the user no longer requires for their workflows, which is why they have to jump through hoops via scripts the likes of ByeBye-GameBar.

With Windows 10’s launch, a variety of data collection features started to roll out not just on the newly released OS iteration, but also as additional updates to the older 7 and 8 versions, in order to let Microsoft know which system components are the most frequently used and how to improve them.

This shift in direction that the tech giant has taken since Windows XP has led to plenty of users seeking out ways to limit the amount of telemetry data being collected and protect their personal data beyond the surface-level privacy options that Windows offers out of the box.

As convenient it may be to have a screen and audio recording function baked into the OS, chances are that a more comprehensive counterpart in the form of OBS Studio checks all of the boxes related to code transparency, multi-monitor recording and streaming capabilities for certain power users.

As such, those who either wish to prevent the GameBar function from being accidentally activated through its dedicated shortcut or just avoid having their device’s limited performance throttled by its overlay system have a chance of fully removing the component without installing custom Windows versions.

Until Microsoft provides users with a way to non-intrusively uninstall functions that are labeled as core components, scripts the likes of ByeBye-GameBar may be the only solution on the horizon.