Purpose of Xbox App
The Xbox app has become the go-to for any gamers playing between Xbox and PC. The app offers a variety of features, such as remote gaming, use game captures, talk with friends, and more. For those who don’t use the app and never will, it’s just another piece of bloatware taking up space on your Windows 10 PC. XBox is one of several universal apps that Microsoft assumes everyone wants. It’s kind of like all those apps mobile manufacturers put on devices that people end up rooting their phones to remove.
Remove Xbox from Windows 10
While it’s easy to remove most apps from “Add or Remove Programs,” you don’t have an uninstall option for Xbox. Instead, you have to take an alternate approach using the Windows PowerShell. While it looks similar to the command prompt, it works a little differently. The process is quick and shouldn’t cause any problems with your PC. However, it’s always a good idea to back up your files just in case. To get started, open the Windows Start menu and type “PowerShell.” You don’t need to see a search bar to type the search term. When the results appear, click “Run as administrator” on the right side of the menu under Windows PowerShell. You’ll need administrator rights to do this. If your user account doesn’t have any administrator rights, you’ll need to have someone log in who does have those account rights. Wait for the PowerShell window to open and the prompt to appear. Type (or copy and paste) the following and press Enter. If you get an error message, try the following instead: This should remove Xbox completely, at least the app itself.
Remove Additional Xbox Apps
If you search your PC, you’ll still find several Xbox-related apps living on your computer. While you can’t get rid of system-level settings and apps, such as Game Bar and Xbox Networking, you can remove the following:
Xbox Game OverlayXbox Gaming OverlayXbox Identify ProviderXbox Speech To Text Overlay
Once again, always back up your files before removing apps via PowerShell in case something doesn’t go right. You’ll use PowerShell just like you did to remove the main Xbox app. However, you’ll enter each of the following one at a time. Hit Enter after each line and wait for the removal process to complete. As with removing the Xbox app, if you receive an error with any of these, change the Microsoft portion of the line to appname where appname is the app listed after the word Microsoft. For example, Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay would become xboxgameoverlay. When finished, restart your computer. Some files may linger, but these are leftover app files. You can use a search tool to find these files and delete them. You can also use Windows’s built-in tools or a system cleaner.
Restoring Xbox App
If you want to restore the Xbox app, reinstall it from the Microsoft Store. There are several versions, including a beta version to try out. You can also wait for a major Windows 10 system update, which usually happens once or twice a year. Sadly, Universal apps typically reappear with major system updates, so you’ll need to go through the removal process again. Microsoft lists the names of most of these apps so you can better control what’s on your PC and understand what the apps are for.
