Windows 10: I go to hardware and sound in control panel and click on manage audio devices and click on...

I go to hardware and sound in control panel and click on manage audio devices and click on recording, and no audio devices installed

:)

 

Disabling Audio input/output (Microphone/Speaker/etc) in Device Manager does not disable device in Sound Control Panel or stop audio...oh my!

In Windows 10 (1803 build 17134.228), I open both "Device Manager" (devmgmt.msc) and the "Sound Control Panel" (mmsys.cpl).

Both Device Manager and the Sound Control Panel show the same audio input/output devices.

ex: "Speakers" and "Microphone".

This is good!

In Device Manager, I disable "Speakers", which continues to show up and has an icon showing it is disabled.

In Sound Control Panel, "Speakers" still shows up and *is not disabled*!

When I play a sound through the [disabled in Device Manager] Speakers, I can still hear the audio!

This is horrible!

In Device Manager, I re-enable "Speakers".

In Sound Control Panel, I disable "Speakers".

In Device Manager, "Speakers" disappears as an Audio output device.

Audio correctly cannot be heard.

This is good!

In summary:

1. Why does disabling "Speakers" in "Device Manager" not stop audio coming out of them?
2. What does disabling "Speakers" in "Device Manager" actually do?
3. Why is disabling Speakers in Device Manager different than disabling Speakers in Sound Control Panel?

Now for the real meat: I am trying to disable/enable the Audio input/output device...

...the way that the Sound Control Panel does...

...but programmatically (PowerShell, C#, C...whatever works).

There are many of examples of how to disable/enable a device that involve "devcon.exe disable/enable", "Get-PnpDevice | Disable/Enable-PnpDevice", and "Get-Device | Disable/Enable-Device".

All of these result in the device being disabled in the Device Manager, and exhibiting the above undesirable behavior; the audio devices still show up in Sound Control Panel and are usable.

I also have tried the Registry hack (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MMDevices\Audio\Capture\{GUID} DeviceState=1 or 10000001), but that seems to be a cosmetic hack only and doesn't actually force close any open devices or prevent new opens.

So I'll add another question:

1. How can I programmatically disable/enable and audio device to have the same effect as doing it in Sound Control Panel?

And no; UI automation of the Sound Control Panel is not an acceptable answer.

I am looking for an actual API that can be called in the background, not a horrible UI hack that requires being in the foreground.

Thanks!

Pv

 

No audio device found but there is in Control Panel

Hello,

I have a strange issue at my main system (see my specs). The taskbar icon for sound is the speaker with the red X and it reports that no input or output audio device is found. Running the troubleshooter finds no problems. In Device Manager the sound card and all audio inputs/outputs are there without any exclamation mark. What is going on? How can I make the sound card work again? I tried to restart the Windows Audio service, nothing changed. I even tried to reinstall the Realtek HD audio driver, nothing changed. Any ideas about this weird issue?

Thank you in advance.

 

Uninstalled audio driver directly from device manager

I run windows 8.1 version 6.3.96000 build 9600 on a Hewlett-Packard 550-027c with and AMD A10-7800 Radeon r7, 12 compute cores 4c+8g 3.50 gHz on a 64-bit operating system.. I have a Beexcellent G-1 headset(a cheap Chinese headset with little customer support).
I had the minor problem of it playing back in the headphones the sound that it heard from the microphone, so I went to https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01950055 thinking
I had a hp headset, and it told me to go to control panel>hardware and sound>device manager>sound, video, and game controllers, right click on the audio device listing, and uninstall it. I did so and then moved onto the next step(reinstall it). It didn't work,
and eventually I realized that I was following the wrong instructions. now the playback thing on the taskbar is a red block sign, the control panel>hardware and sound>audio devices says "no audio devices are installed"

what I want: to reinstall the audio device so the headphones work at all. i can worry about the playback thing later.

what I tried:

Microsoft system restore

restart

control panel>hardware and sound>device manager>sound, video, and game controllers-action-scan for hardware changes

control panel>hardware and sound>device manager>sound, video, and game controllers-action-add legacy hardware

diagnostics

to be clear, under control panel>hardware and sound>device manager>sound, video, and game controllers, my device is not showing, at all. In control panel>hardware and sound>audio devices>, it says "no audio devices are installed. msinfo32>hardware resources>components>sound
device shows no audio device.

the headphones work on other devices.

No headphones or speakers of any kind work on the computer

i am sad and thank you for helping