Xbox Game Bar

Windows 11 provides a handy feature called the Xbox Game Bar that lets you capture screenshots and record video clips of your gameplay experiences and then share them with others.

You summon the Xbox Game Bar by pressing the white and lighted Xbox button in the center of your Xbox Wireless Controller while you are playing a game. It appears with a collection of sub-windows, called widgets, each with specific functionality, over the game you're playing.

Keyboard/mouse gamer? Type WINKEY + G to display the Xbox Game Bar.
If you press the Xbox button when you are not playing a game, the Controller bar will appear instead. This is described later in the chapter.
The Xbox Game Bar offers the following controls:

Controller bar. Click this button to display the Controller bar, a minimal Xbox Game Bar view that is normally accessed via an Xbox Wireless Controller. This feature is described later in the chapter.

Widget menu. Click this button to display the list of widgets you can display in and alongside the Xbox Game Bar, along with a link to the Widget Store, where you can find additional widgets. Use the Favorite/Unfavorite (star) icon next to a widget to toggle its display on or off.

Each of the built-in widgets is described briefly in the next section.
Widgets. The center of the Xbox Game Bar includes a scrollable collection of the widgets you have favorited in the Widgets menu and thus appears when you display the Xbox Game Bar. (Favorite widgets appear in the Xbox Game Bar and you can use this UI to toggle the display of their overlays.) There are "Show previous widget" and "Show next widget" buttons on either side of this collection for navigation purposes.

Clock. Because it's likely that the clock in the Windows 11 Taskbar will be hidden while you are playing a game.

Enable/disable click-through. By default, when you click the mouse button while the cursor is over the Xbox Game Bar or one of its overlays, you will click that UI. But you can use this button---which resembles a mouse---to enable a feature called click-through by which mouse clicks will go through the Xbox Game Bar UI and will impact the game that is underneath it instead.

Settings. This icon, which resembles a gear, displays Xbox Game Bar settings. This interface lets you customize keyboard shortcuts, the Controller bar, linked social media accounts for sharing clips, and more.

Get to know the Xbox Game Bar widgets
The following widgets are available with the Xbox Game Bar:

Audio. This overlay lets you configure the audio device that will be used for game audio, which can be handy if you wish to use something other than the default audio device in Windows, as well as the microphone you'll use for voice chat. It also lets you set the volume level for that device globally and individually configure the audio output level for each application and game using the device.
Yes, you can access some of this functionality from the Volume icon ...

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