ArcOSOverlay using systems microphone

foppotee

I saw this brought up a couple of times in chat yesterday & today & had noticed it happening on my system just didn't think much of it till now.

When using Arc to log into STO for some reason since the last patch or 1 before the microphone emblem is appearing alongside my normal volume, internet, & battery emblems, its my laptop. It doesnt appear until I "Engage" my STO launcher & it launches the game even in character select screen & I have Voice Chat disabled in Options.

Placing my mouse pointer over it states, "ArcOSOverlay is using your microphone".

If its indeed using my microphone isnt this an invasion of privacy???

seaofsorrows

I don't know how it works legally.. it feels rather invasive, that's for sure.

If you want to stop this from happening, on Windows 10 open Settings, then select Privacy, Microphone.

Here you can either globally turn off App access to your Microphone or you can scroll down through the apps, find Arc and deny it access to your Mic. As to why it's doing it in the first place, that I do not know.. but I am sure there must be some setting inside Arc to disable that. I don't use Arc so I don't know where it is.

foppotee

seaofsorrows wrote: »

I don't know how it works legally.. it feels rather invasive, that's for sure.

If you want to stop this from happening, on Windows 10 open Settings, then select Privacy, Microphone.

Here you can either globally turn off App access to your Microphone or you can scroll down through the apps, find Arc and deny it access to your Mic. As to why it's doing it in the first place, that I do not know.. but I am sure there must be some setting inside Arc to disable that. I don't use Arc so I don't know where it is.

Thank you very much, seaofsorrows, I did the Windows/Settings/Privacy option you described. It even showed where that ArcOSOverlay was the last to access it. I then tested it logging in through Arc & it worked. My computer Notifications even stated it had blocked Arc trying to access it again. Again thanks for the advice!

seaofsorrows

No problem, glad it worked.

protoneous

I installed STO on my PC laptop using Arc but run it from the .exe usually. I just checked where Sea directed and ArcOSOverlay does access your microphone but so does the STO gameclient. For whatever reason they haven't done so in about a year going by the dates displayed in Win10.

Under settings in Arc there is a chat tab in which you could uncheck "automatically sign into chat" if you're concerned. That might take care of it or you could do what Sea suggested and disable it via Windows.

I'm not too concerned myself as there's in-game chat with mic access as well from the gameclient and I've had that disabled via the game settings for about a decade or so.

Games and chat go hand in hand with a mic and speakers so it's one of those things I'd check after any new install so it works the way you want it to but it actually does make sense to me that the default is the same as the game.

I wouldn't read too much into it.

I asked Cortana what to do but didn't get any response because I turned it off a long time ago.

leemwatson

It's the game's in-game voice-chat that it is accessed for and can be disabled with-in game. It's been in there for years. They must be using a newer system outside of the game now.