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Fixed a game launcher shutdown issue.

NeoXanthus
NeoXanthus
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Starting around May–June of last year, I began experiencing a persistent issue when exiting the game: the loader would hang for several seconds before finally closing. At the time, I assumed it was related to a game update, GPU driver update, or possibly an addon.

Fast-forward to this week. I finally resolved the issue, and the root cause was unexpected enough that I wanted to share it here in case it helps others.

While testing the PTS, I noticed additional problems: the game would not display on my primary monitor and instead launched on secondary monitors, and fullscreen mode was unavailable. Since my multi-monitor setup works correctly for everything else, I ruled out general configuration issues. To eliminate variables, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 Pro for Workstations on a secondary NVMe drive and installed only ESO and PTS ESO, with no addons.

On this clean install, the live client worked correctly, but the PTS still exhibited the same behavior, no fullscreen or borderless fullscreen on the primary monitor. After further troubleshooting, I traced all of these issues back to the Xbox Game Bar introduced via a Microsoft update.

Once the Xbox Game Bar was removed/disabled, the exit hang issue was resolved, fullscreen behavior returned to normal, and I also observed a noticeable increase in FPS.

This is what I did to remove it.

[from an administrative PowerShell console]

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage

reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR /f /t REG_DWORD /v "AppCaptureEnabled" /d 0

reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\GameConfigStore /f /t REG_DWORD /v "GameDVR_Enabled" /d 0
  • SolidBeast
    SolidBeast
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    This is how I find out that there's such a thing as Xbox Gaming Overlay installed and, to my horror, immediately activated upon clicking Win + G, which showed that it had apparently been running the entire time in the background. I followed your steps and removed this. On the first try, my launcher closed immediately, but on second restart of the game and subsequent closure, it still hangs for 10-ish seconds, frozen. Perhaps I need a reboot first, just couldn't be bothered to do it at this moment.
    "Many fall, but one remains."
  • NeoXanthus
    NeoXanthus
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    SolidBeast wrote: »
    This is how I find out that there's such a thing as Xbox Gaming Overlay installed and, to my horror, immediately activated upon clicking Win + G, which showed that it had apparently been running the entire time in the background. I followed your steps and removed this. On the first try, my launcher closed immediately, but on second restart of the game and subsequent closure, it still hangs for 10-ish seconds, frozen. Perhaps I need a reboot first, just couldn't be bothered to do it at this moment.

    Crap, I should have said to reboot. Reboot is required for most registry updates. Thank you for the quick response.
  • SolidBeast
    SolidBeast
    ✭✭✭
    NeoXanthus wrote: »

    Crap, I should have said to reboot. Reboot is required for most registry updates. Thank you for the quick response.

    Okay, that's my bad, then. I was vaguely aware of this and probably should have rebooted before posting. I've retested it now after rebooting and the launcher closes immediately when clicking X but does take about 10 seconds to register the game as not running anymore (this might have always been the case?).
    "Many fall, but one remains."
  • NeoXanthus
    NeoXanthus
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    SolidBeast wrote: »
    NeoXanthus wrote: »

    Crap, I should have said to reboot. Reboot is required for most registry updates. Thank you for the quick response.

    Okay, that's my bad, then. I was vaguely aware of this and probably should have rebooted before posting. I've retested it now after rebooting and the launcher closes immediately when clicking X but does take about 10 seconds to register the game as not running anymore (this might have always been the case?).

    I am not sure. But I like having the launcher close immediately.
  • ZOS_Icy
    ZOS_Icy
    mod
    Greetings,

    This thread has been moved to the PC Technical Support section, as it is better suited there.

    The Elder Scrolls Online Team
    Staff Post
  • Malkorga
    Malkorga
    ✭✭✭
    I wanted to say thanks to NeoXanthus for this information. I was not aware of the x-box gaming bar, and although I have not experienced any issues, i also disabled it.

    Cheers
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