Friday night, after a day in the salt mines, I came home, awakened computer from a much-deserved slumber, and saw this!:
I didn't click on anything. I was able to 'X' out of the ones on the right and left. I clicked on Desktop, and the 2 in the middle disappeared.
Does ANYbody have ANY idea what this stuff is? Never seen anything like it before. Thanks for any help.
Hi, a quick search suggests it's something called Xbox widgets.
Xbox Game Bar Update: Introducing the Resources Widget - Xbox Wire
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/10/...ources-widget/
Thanks, dalchina.
I neglected to mention that I was so concerned about this that I did 2 security scans on the computer before I used it for anything.
I don't own an Xbox, never used an Xbox, never seen an Xbox, barely know what the damn thing is, don't think I've ever clicked on the Start menu Xbox entry. How/why would this nonsense suddenly appear on my screen? Who do I sue?
Sorry I can't help you there- I'd never seen it before your screenshot.
Presumably there's something you have installed- apps- (Xbox Game Bar is a default app) this is related to.
In addition, you can use an option in the tutorial below to turn off the Game Bar to prevent it from opening by mistake again.
Turn On or Off Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10
Thanks again to dalchina and now to Brink.
No, I haven't installed any "apps." I went to Gaming in Settings. The Xbox Game Bar setting was toggled to 'On.' I turned it off and unchecked a box that had to do with something related. I certainly didn't turn these things on and am not sure I've even ever been on that screen. I go through pretty much every Setting and Control Panel item every time there's a major Windows update. Maybe I skipped that whole function because I don't play computer games, I'm not sure. In any event, I never would have had a reason to turn anything on in that regard.
So, thanks again to both. I'll mark this as resolved.
I, and others I've heard from, also had the Xbox Game Bar and widgets appear just once over the last few days.
I'm almost certain it was caused by an automatic Windows Store update to the Xbox App (Console Companion).
Thanks, NMI.
I may have been in Windows Store a time or two just out of curiosity, but I've never gotten anything from there. I certainly don't have anything 'Xbox' on my machine that Microsoft/Windows didn't put there.
Yes, but Store updates for standard ("inbox") apps like Xbox are automatic by default.
You can check at Control Panel, Security and maintenance, View reliability history. If you click two days back on Friday you should see that 9WZDNCRFJBD8-Microsoft.XboxApp was successfully updated around the time you saw the Game Bar widgets.
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