Freeware Spotlight — Bloatbox

Topic

New Reply

BEST UTILITIES By Deanna McElveen Managing privacy and removing bloatware in Windows are two of those important but annoying tasks for keeping a safe
[See the full post at: Freeware Spotlight — Bloatbox]

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, woody

Reply | Quote

Replies

Would this get rid of the “XBox Game Bar”? I haven’t found a way to nuke it.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

This post has a PowerShell method.
https://gist.github.com/joshschmelzle/04c57d957c5bb92e85ae9180021b26dc

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

I think SharpApp will remove it.

or

10appsmanager

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

“XBox Game Bar”

Do you mean app used for recording videos from applications?

It is called “Xbox gaming overlay”.

If you remove package “Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay” shortcut Win+G will not work anymore and windows will require downloading it from Store.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Nathan Parker wrote:

Would this get rid of the “XBox Game Bar”? I haven’t found a way to nuke it.

You might try Revo Uninstaller Freeware:
https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo-uninstaller-free-download/

Use the “Windows Apps” tab to remove Microsoft “uninstallable” software.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, doriel

Reply | Quote

IIRC, People is the contact list for the infamous app Microsoft Mail.  Or are these two different apps?

Reply | Quote

No. It is not Microsoft Mail/contacts.
People aggregate all channels of communicating with people.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Nathan Parker wrote:

Would this get rid of the “XBox Game Bar”? I haven’t found a way to nuke it.

Don’t bother trying Debotnet to disable it. I tried as a test (using ‘Run as Administrator on a Win 10 Home 1803 install) and Debotnet claimed to have successfully disabled it…

… but didn’t. 🙁

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, doriel

Reply | Quote

Nathan Parker wrote:

Would this get rid of the “XBox Game Bar”? I haven’t found a way to nuke it.

I tried SharpApp as well (using ‘Run as Administrator’). It claimed to have disabled the Game Bar and – just in case – I restarted Windows.

I checked in the registry and, sure enough, the policy restriction had been written:

I also re-ran SharpApp and clicked on the Configured button. A window appeared, confirming that the Disable Game Bar policy had been applied.

And here’s what happened when I pressed Game Bar’s Win+G keyboard shortcut:

… the Game Bar overlay!

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, geekdom

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

I think SharpApp will remove it. or 10appsmanager

Nope… 10AppsManager doesn’t disable or remove it either:

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, geekdom

Reply | Quote

geekdom wrote:

You might try Revo Uninstaller Freeware

I couldn’t get Revo Uninstaller Free to even display Game Bar and you cannot use Hunter Mode on the Game Bar overlay itself.

Geek Uninstaller didn’t show it either.

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, geekdom, satrow

Reply | Quote

Uninstalling/Removing the Game Bar : (this is no longer an option on any recent Windows 10 build)

But try Powershell / DISM

Reply | Quote

My advice is – watch you don’t break anything with any freeware (tr)apps

illegitimi Non Carborundum

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, geekdom

Reply | Quote

Well, it looks like you all found version 0.14.0 before I did. We’ve updated OlderGeeks.com to the new version: https://www.oldergeeks.com/downloads/file.php?id=3403

-Deanna
OlderGeeks.com

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Just ask yourself this before removing excess default baggage:
Have I backed up recently?
Have you considered this:
What if a feature upgrade goes awry in the future?
Utilities like this are likely the cause of problems for W10 on a full metal jacket installation.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Alex5723 wrote:

Uninstalling/Removing the Game Bar : (this is no longer an option on any recent Windows 10 build)

But try Powershell / DISM

I think I’ve tried everything now – including PowerShell and DISM – even deleting all the Xbox services and deleting the Microsoft.XboxGameCallableUI app package itself.

I even deleted C:\Windows\System32\en-GB\GamePanel.exe… all to no avail.

It makes me wonder… why has Microsoft gone to such lengths to protect the Xbox ‘Win+G’ user interface from people with absolutely no interest whatsoever?

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Is there another incidence of the application in the User\AppData either Local or Roaming? Seems when I was playing with removing Apps, there was a backup somewhere in AppData.
I may be shooting in the wind.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

PKCano wrote:

Is there another incidence of the application in the User\AppData either Local or Roaming? Seems when I was playing with removing Apps, there was a backup somewhere in AppData.
I may be shooting in the wind.

Yes – a C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.XboxGameCallableUI_cw5n1h2txyewy folder.

I deleted this as well. It made no difference.

I did a search for Xbox using voidtool’s Everything. I’m still wondering whether to continue looking at the remaining 719 file/folder locations that were found. 🙁

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Microfix wrote:

Just ask yourself this before removing excess default baggage:
Have I backed up recently?
Have you considered this:
What if a feature upgrade goes awry in the future?
Utilities like this are likely the cause of problems for W10 on a full metal jacket installation.

All good points…

A lot of the deletions have had to done under the auspices of TrustedInstaller… which is why I’ve been doing all my testing in a VM first (and snapshotting regularly). 🙂

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, Microfix

Reply | Quote

Not very good.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

I just tried the latest Bloatbox 0.14.1 release…:

Ummm… what?

So I tried it on a brand new VM to see if I could get rid of Microsoft’s now accursed Xbox UI invoked by Win+G…

Note that this is down to Microsoft, not Bloatbox… but still disappointing.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, geekdom

Reply | Quote

[geekdom]

Unless you actually know what you’re uninstalling, BloatBox is a blind trust program.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by geekdom.

Reply | Quote

geekdom wrote:

Unless you actually know what you’re uninstalling, this is a blind trust program.

Unfortunately, isn’t that what consumers’ relationships are with Microsoft these days? Blind trust?

I believe people tinker with certain aspects of Windows because they have lost all trust in Microsoft…

… others tinker because they hark back to the time when Microsoft positively welcomed changes to Windows’ unique configurability.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

The reason I was asking was this is on my work PC. I have zero plans to use it, and I wanted to remove it since the PC is solely for work purposes. It seems Microsoft is being stubborn about it. 🙂

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

I clicked Bloatbox.exe, windows defender said NO! “More info” gave me the choice to “run anyway” which I clicked, nothing happened. Tried it again, same thing happened.  Now what?

Reply | Quote

In bloatbox.zip, make sure bloatbox.exe is highlighted.

Select Extract from the top menu bar, not Open.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ken

Reply | Quote