What is this on my Win10 machine, and how do I get rid of it?

[Jamie Buxton]

My desktop is a Windows machine, regularly maintained with Microsoft updates. A while ago, Microsoft added this. It is a transparent overlay on my regular boot screen. I don't know what it is, and certainly didn't ask for it. It adds to the already-long boot time, so I'd like to get rid of it.

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So -- two questions:
* What is it?
* Anybody know how to stop it from booting?

[Jim Koepke]

Does Win10 have a start up folder?

Don't feel too bad, Macintosh also has an annoying app at start up that requires hitting the escape key or clicking on the red dot to get rid of on start up.

jtk

[Myk Rian]

It looks like an app of some kind was installed. See what apps you have.

[Brian Elfert]

That doesn't look like a part of Windows 10.

[Mike Henderson]

To check what apps startup on boot, after you get booted, right click on the taskbar (at the bottom of the screen) and choose "Task Manager". This will start the Task Manager. You might have to click on "More details" at the bottom of Task Manager.

Then click on the "Startup" tab. That will show you all the programs that startup on boot. If you right click on a program name, you can choose "Disable" to stop it from starting up at boot. Alternately, after you have a program highlighted you can hit the "Disable" button on the bottom of the window.

You can also get to Task Manager by the old technique of ctl-alt-del and than selecting Task Manager.

Mike

[Steve Wurster]

Are you referring to those 4 windows with black backgrounds? Those appear to be part of the XBox Game Bar. Go into Settings, Gaming, and turn off the Game Bar.

[Mark Bolton]

Its actually super handy for screen captures and video screen captures. start button+G toggles. *edit* maybe "start button" should have been "windows button" but anyway,.. the windows key+g... I use it multiple times a day for screen clips to send to customers and to the shop.

[Jim Becker]

Don't feel too bad, Macintosh also has an annoying app at start up that requires hitting the escape key or clicking on the red dot to get rid of on start up.



None of my three Macs have ever done that...2010 iMac, 2012 MBPr13 and 2019 MBPr15

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Jamie, that looks like some kind of utility that's getting started automatically. I've never seen that on my Win10 instances at all and I keep them current.

[Jamie Buxton]

Are you referring to those 4 windows with black backgrounds? Those appear to be part of the XBox Game Bar. Go into Settings, Gaming, and turn off the Game Bar.

Thank you. That did the trick.

[Gary Ragatz]

Had an odd thing happen a few weeks ago with my Windows 10 desktop. After an update, the background, which I've never modified - it's just the default that was there when I first bought the machine - started displaying an orange "Lenovo" logo in the lower right. What's odd is that my laptop is a Dell Inspiron, and this is the Windows 10 OS that came with the machine. Chinese hackers?

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