Forum Discussion
Reinstate audio function without reinstalling Windows?
1. Run the audio troubleshooter.
This is the easiest thing you can try. If your audio issue is deeply rooted, it will probably not be very helpful to run the audio troubleshooter. It can only fix the simplest possible non-issues such as if you have accidentally muted your speakers and you're unaware of it. In that case, this tool can unmute it for you.
I did not make this tool, so I don't know all of its capabilities. It could for example be able to restart and enable audio related Windows services, and that alone would make it worth a try.
Run control from the Run prompt to open the Control Panel.
Now follow this path.
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Troubleshooting\Hardware and Sound
Click on the item that says "Playing Audio" and follow the instructions.
2. Ensure that audio related Windows services are running.Run services.msc from the Run prompt and locate the following two services.
- Windows Audio
- Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
Make sure their Status is "Running" and their Startup Type is set to "Automatic".
3. Reinstall audio device and device drivers.Open the Device Manager and locate the "Sound, video and game controllers" category and expand it to view audio controllers. Right click on each of them and then click "Uninstall device". If you get the optional check box "Delete the driver software for this device" be sure to check it before you click on Uninstall.
Note: You will have to download and reinstall the audio drivers, especially if you have selected to "delete the driver software for this device".
Go to Action menu, then select "Scan for hardware changes" to re-enable your audio device(s). You may need to reboot the PC, especially if you have selected to delete the device drivers in the previous step.
4. Restore system configuration using a System Restore point.Run sysdm.cpl from the Run prompt to open System Properties and click on "System Protection" tab. Then click on System Restore, select "Choose a different restore point" and click Next. Then select a restore point whose creation date and time predates the audio issue you're experiencing. Don't select one that's too far back in the past as it could undo more system changes than you would want to.
5. Attempt to manually repair the Windows registry.Have a look at one of these locations.
- C:\Windows\System32\config\repair
- C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack
See if you have some files in there with names such as "SAM", "SECURITY", "SOFTWARE", etc. These are your registry hive files. These files contain all the important system configuration parameters and allow Windows to boot correctly, recognize and initialize your system devices. You can use these files in an attempt to repair your Windows registry using various tools Microsoft has released over the years, including RegEdit.
Note: The hive files your system is currently using are stored one level up in the System32\config folder.
Note: This is a very advanced topic, and I would advice against using these techniques if you don't feel comfortable with it. I would not only advice against it because it's an advanced topic, but because the chances of success are slim and you may be wasting your time on this. There is no single tool (to my knowledge) that Microsoft has released that can reliably repair a corrupted Windows registry. The best I know of is RegEdit, but you need to be running it on the system you are trying to repair, or know how to load and unload registry hives offline and make changes that way. It can get really tricky and it's a dirty solution.
Note: Starting with Windows 10 version 1803, Windows no longer uses the RegBack folder to store backup copies of its important registry hive files. This feature has been deprecated and this folder is no longer used.
Note: Don't fool yourself with registry repair tools. They don't do anything useful but make you feel good about your PC, making you think that you're doing something good for your PC. They belong in the same category as "PC Performance Boost" type of applications. There are dozens of these registry repair and cleaning tools on the web, and all they do is remove registry keys and values that are not of any concern to begin with. You can end up screwing up a perfectly healthy Windows installation by using these tools.
6. Do a so called "in-place upgrade".This works by migrating the old Windows registry and all the registered devices and their drivers to a new Windows registry. The chances of a successful repair are higher here than doing manual registry labor. It depends largely on the state of the current registry and how badly it is corrupted.
7. Restore your system from a system backup.If you have one, restoring your system state from a backup could be your first and last step you would need to do to recover from this kind of audio issue. If you don't have a backup solution already, you should invest some time in sourcing a backup solution that can create disk images or system images. I personally have a very good one, but this event with Windows Update and audio issues was set too far back in time for me to revert the changes using my system image, and I didn't attend to the problem at hand before it was too late.
8. Reinstall Windows.As the last resort, if everything else fails, you can be sure that reinstalling Windows will most certainly resolve the issue. This too could be your first and last step you would need to do. The cost of reinstalling Windows is that you would have to restore all your files and applications. As I pointed out previously, your files should not be stored and living on your Windows partition in any case. Make it a habit to store your files elsewhere. The same goes for applications and configuration files. If you can install them elsewhere, do so. This will make you much better prepared to reinstall Windows whenever you run into some issue that you can't resolve. Reinstalling Windows fixes 99.99% of all issues with Windows.
The more I dig the more disturbing things I uncover about Windows. For example, where is the "Last Known Good Configuration" in Windows 10?... It's nowhere! Apparently, Microsoft has decided to eliminate that too. (Do correct me if I'm wrong.)
https://softwarekeep.com/help-center/how-to-boot-windows-10-into-the-last-known-good-configuration
"If you’re asking yourself how to boot Windows 10 into the “Last Known Good Configuration” mode, the short answer is that you’re out of luck. Microsoft has removed this specific boot option, however, many other options are still available through Advanced Recovery options."
I wouldn't know exactly what those "other options" are, so I can't say if they are equivalent or not. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but judging by screenshots of "Advanced Recovery" in Windows 10 that other people have taken I cannot identify any option that even remotely resonates with "Last Known Good Configuration". (Please inform me someone what that option is called in Windows 10 jargon.)
What's even more disturbing is that there are and have been so many different recovery and repair tools in the Windows world (as I have stated previously), it's mind-boggling. This is telling its own story of how fragile Windows as a system is. One of its biggest weak spots has to be the Windows Registry. This is a cause for nightmares for just about anyone who has worked in IT for any length of time.
To give you an idea, I just learned of a tool called Automatic System Recovery (ASR). This is an old Windows XP tool. It has been replaced by other tools in later Windows versions. I believe this was something like System Restore is now. You can read more about it from the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_system_recovery
I have come to understand that one of the things that at least Windows XP did during installation is place backup copies of the five key hive files (SYSTEM, SAM, SOFTWARE, SECURITY, DEFAULT) in this folder on the system: C:\Windows\System32\config\repair. Which would later be used for manual Windows registry repairs. Note that, this set of hive files is placed on the disk (and takes up space, which is something Microsoft is not proud of apparently and is trying to retreat from), in addition to the hive files in the RegBack folder. Of course the version or state of these files would be different, but they are taking up space nonetheless.
This has given me an idea I might follow up on to try to fix my audio issue.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-insider-program/problema-canal-windows-insider/m-p/2441823#M5180
Please read this!
however, I think it must be clean installation and unregister from the Dev channel.
WinRE is not possible so I think.Indeed, I had to reinstall Windows. Reinstalling Windows fixes every Windows issue, and it works every time, and more often than not it's the only solution. I have working audio now, as expected. But it was not possible without reinstalling Windows.
The idea I wanted to explore was to do a so called "registry swap" like in the age of Windows XP. So I tried to do a clean install and then grab the registry hive files right after installation. This is basically what the RegBack folder was used for in the past. It would contain copies of Windows hive files that were made right after installing Windows.
Microsoft had its own article on how to do this "registry swap" magic trick. I would like to direct you to KB307545 and the link below, but the article has been removed and the link is now returning status code 404.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
It's basically the same idea as described on the site I linked to previously.
https://www.kuhnline.com/repair-corrupted-registry-hive/
I think this works on Windows XP and possibly Windows 7, but not on newer versions of Windows. Mainly because they have changed the architecture of System Restore and it seems like there is now a new binary format in place. So even if you take ownership of System Volume Information, you can't manipulate the snapshots of System Restore so you can't inject old RegBack copies of registry hive files. That's the basic mechanism that the KB307545 article relied on.
This method was intended to enabling Windows to at least boot up correctly, so you could save your files and stuff, after which it would seem advisable to reinstall Windows (no mention of that in the article). In my case however, I could boot Windows correctly and access all my files, that was not the problem.
So this solution was a bit way out there... merging Windows registries or doing a "registry swap" is for most normal Windows users and even for power users unheard of, and it will most likely fail. You don't merge Windows registries and you don't "swap" Windows registries. Windows registry is a one way road. When that road starts to crack and it becomes corrupted, it's time to scrap it and start off fresh with a new installation. That's how Windows is, for as long as I can remember it. Microsoft probably realized this too, that's why they removed the article, and for good reason too. But in my opinion they could have kept it at least for historic reasons so people can read it and make their own judgement call to follow or not to follow the instructions. I was desperate and willing to try it. Thankfully, others have scraped and cloned the old Microsoft article so we can read what it was about, and others still have written their own and better instructions on how to do this.
Just reinstall Windows... fixes every Windows problem and works every time. You just need to make sure you don't save anything on your Windows partition. Don't save anything and don't install anything on your Windows partition.
In very old Windows versions, you could install your applications to D:\ drive and then Format C:\ and reuse your applications from D:\ without reinstalling them. Sadly this has not been possible for ages in newer Windows versions. In most cases, the only benefit you get from installing your applications to D:\ rather than C:\ is that you can salvage some user data and configuration files. You still need to reinstall your applications.Hello!
thank you for your confirmation - it's worth it for other users to mark the best answer - the watek is big so it's needed1
I am very glad that Windows works for you properly.
Feel like participating in the help for other Members of the MTC!
Andrew