How to screen record on Windows 11 without any program

Andre December 13, 2021Last Updated: December 13, 2021

Windows’ ‘ Game Bar, ‘recently renamed the Xbox Game Bar, remains as available in Windows 11 as it was in Windows 10. As its name will have allowed you to deduce, this application was created to be used while we played video games. Still, the truth is that there is nothing that prevents us from using it to record any other kind of software that we are using, so – if we do not handle more specialized software – it becomes a valuable tool to create short videos that capture what we are doing on screen.

Of course, since it is designed for games usually played on full screen, the Xbox Game Bar will only allow us to record one application simultaneously (and nothing to include the desktop as a background), unfortunately.

Steps to follow in recording a short video in a few clicks

Step 1: Launch the application you want to record and, once its window is active, display the Xbox Game Bar by simultaneously pressing the Windows keys + ‘G’ on your keyboard.
Step 2: Both the bar itself and several floating widgets (corresponding to various application functions) will be displayed on the screen: the only one that interests us is the one you will see with the title ‘Capture.’ If it is not visible, we can activate it from the bar like this:

Step 3: We can start the recording from the controls of the capture mentioned above widget or by pressing the Windows + Alt + ‘R’ keys. Do we want the video to include the audio captured by the microphone? For example, we can use the corresponding button on the controls or the Windows + Alt + ‘M’ key combination.
Step 4: While the bar is recording the screen, we will see a floating bar that shows the recording time and controls to stop recording and to activate/deactivate the microphone. Thus, once we have finished recording, we must press the ‘Stop’ button.

Step 5: Immediately after that, a notification will appear on the screen, offering us to view the recorded clip. If we click on it, the ‘Captures’ folder within the ‘Videos’ folder will open in Windows Explorer.