Windows 10: Using hands-frees as a microphone for a Windows machine

Hello all,

I want to record my voice on my Windows 10 x64 machine but don't have a separate microphone and can't purchase it due to quarantine held in my whereabouts because of the virus.
But I have two hands-frees for an iPhone and a Nokia mobile phones. The problem is that they both have only one socket, presumably named Aux or like that but the desktop PC has two separate ports for microphone and headphone. When I put the socket of any of the hands-frees to the microphone port of the PC, very very rarely a tiny sound like a noise will be received by the machine.

I'm stuck into that problem and can't work it out! *Sad

How could I fix the issue and finally record my voice on the machine, please? Do you have any idea?
Thanks in advance.

:)

 

Hands free for Cortana

Hi Michael,

For better assistance, is your HP desktop has a built in microphone? Basically, you should use a microphone to activate "Hey Cortana", either built in or external microphone.

To activate "Hey Cortana", please follow the steps below:

• Press Windows key. Type Cortana, then select
  Cortana & Search settings.
• Turn on Let Cortana respond to "Hey Cortana".

3. In the next window, click Sure to let Cortana use your microphone.





Feel free to post back should you need further help.

 

What's the difference between stereo and hands free?

I've experimented with my own bluetooth headset and here's my results:

• the "Stereo" device is the main high-quality playback device of the headset, while the "hands-free" device is a lower quality monophonic playback device
  
• Attempting to capture audio from the bluetooth microphone (which is also labeled "hands-free") disables the main playback device, but not the hands-free playback device.
  
• By having one application play audio from one playback device and another application playing from the other, the hands-free device also disables the main device.
  

My conclusion is that the hands-free devices is inteded to be used when there's a two-way audio communication happening, but otherwise, use the main playback device. What I still don't understand is why the main audio playback device is being disabled when the hands-free devices are being used. Couldn't they both be on at the same time? That's when I hit a wall.

If you're woundering about things like teamspeak, discord, skype, etc. and why you are unable to hear other applications when you join a call or a voice chat, it's because these communication applications enable the hands-free devices, which in turn disables the main devices playing back other applications' audio. To solve this, you can use an external microphone, like the built-in one, or you can switch to the lower quality hands-free playback device. You can change all this from the "Sound" settings on Windows.

 

External microphone does not work

Hi Zarbab,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



The issue could be because of the microphone being in a disabled state. I suggest you to try the steps listed below and check if it works:

• Open Control Panel and categorize to view by
  Small Icons.
  
• Click on Speech Recognition and navigate to
  Advanced Speech Options > Microphone > Advanced
  
• Check Real Conexant HD Audio, save the changes and exit
  Control Panel.
  
• Restart the machine to see if the microphone works.
  

Meanwhile, you may also want to go through the troubleshooting suggestions given in the following articles and see if they help:

• Fix sound problems in Windows 10
  
• HP PCs - Resolving Microphone Problems (Windows 10, 8)
  

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,