Audio Issues (No Sound) After June 2010 Windows XP Updates

Last week Windows updates were applied which caused a high volume of issues concerning audio devices. Users were reporting that they no longer had sound coming from speakers/headsets. The sounds were now coming from the System speaker which is located inside the computer.

If you are experiencing an issue with sound please follow the steps below to resolve. To verify your computer was impacted by this issue:

1. From the Start menu choose Control Panel.



2. Open the Sound and Audio Devices control panel.



3. Click the Volume tab and "No audio device" will appear.
   
   If you have "No audio device" please close all programs and follow these steps.

Edit Machine.INF file

1. Open My Computer.



2. From the Tools menu choose Folder Options.



3. Click View tab.



4. Click Show hidden files and folders.



5. Click OK.



6. Open Local Disk (C:).



7. Open the Windows folder. If you see a warning message about "These files are hidden...", click Show the contents of this folder.



8. Locate and open the inf folder (it will appear 'grayed' out).



9. From the View menu choose Details.



10. Press the M key. This should highlight the file called machine.inf.



11. Right-click on machine.inf and choose Copy.



12. Minimize the C:\Windows\inf window to get it out of the way.



13. Right-click on a blank area of your desktop and choose Paste. (this will create a copy of the machine.inf on the desktop)



14. Right click on machine.inf file on YOUR DESKTOP and click Open With....



15. Highlight Notepad. Click OK. (this will open Notepad program)



16. Scroll down to the section that is called [ControlFlags].



17. Highlight and remove this line:
    
    ExcludeFromSelect=*
    
    
18. From the File menu choose Save. Close Notepad.

Force Refresh of Audio Device

1. From the Start menu choose Control Panel.



2. Open the Add Hardware control panel.



3. When the Welcome to the Add Hardware Wizard appears, click Next.



4. Wait for it to search for new hardware.



5. Choose Yes, I have already connected the hardware and click Next.



6. Scroll to the bottom of the Installed hardware list and select Add a new hardware device and click Next.



7. Choose Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced) and click Next.



8. Under Common hardware types, select Show All Devices and click Next.



9. Wait for it to find all devices. (this will take as long as 30 - 60 seconds)



10. Click Have Disk. Click Browse.



11. From the Look in: drop down list, choose Desktop.



12. Highlight machine.inf and click Open.



13. Click OK.



14. Under Manufacturer, at the top of the list, select (Standard system devices).



15. Under Model, scroll down to select Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator and click Next.



16. To start installing the drivers, click Next.



17. Wait for the software to install then click Finish.



18. Once finished, reboot your machine.



19. Test sound.
    
    If sound still does not play or if you have any questions please let us know. Send email to AgCompSupport@psu.edu, call us at (814) 865-1229 or submit a Help Request on the web at http://agsci.psu.edu/it/help-request.
    
    
20. If the sound is now working again, please delete the machine.inf file you copied to the desktop.