Most users should not experience issues with Audacity when they upgrade to Windows 10. However, some might. The following tells you why and how to fix it.
When you upgrade your PC to Windows 10, the update process automatically upgrades your PC’s drivers to the most current ones it “believes” they should be. This policy is correct and desirable most of the time. However, there is at least one case where it is not.
Your PC may have a certain hardware configuration that required the manufacturer to acquire a customized driver from the sound card manufacturer. So “vanilla” drivers that would work on other PC’s will not work with your machine.
In my case, I have a Realtek High Definition Audio Device sound card. Apparently my Gateway PC required a specialized driver for this card. So when I upgraded to Windows 10, my sound system worked fine with every sound application except one: Audacity.
I discovered that uninstalling the Windows 10 installed driver and re-installing the driver provided by Gateway restored full operation. However, I ran into another problem: Audacity worked for one day. Next time I went to use it the next day, it no longer worked. The reason is that Windows 10 has an automatic driver update feature. When it “senses” that you are using an older driver, it silently downloads and installs a newer one, probably next time you boot up. So reverting to the original driver only works for one day, requiring you re-install your original driver again and again.
I found out that there is a standard way to stop automatic drive updates. However, it is an “all or nothing” proposition. While I don’t want my Realtek driver automatically updated, I do want the others to update as needed.
Further research unearthed a Microsoft provided utility that in effect allows you stop automatic updates of particular drivers. You find it at: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930. What you do is to hide the update for your particular driver. This prevents the automatic driver update feature from updating the driver automatically. To use it, you uninstall the incorrect driver, run the utility and hide the specific driver, and then install your correct driver.
I have done this and now Audacity works on my machine.
Again, I emphasize that upgrading to Windows 10 may not “break” Audacity. For example, I upgraded my Laptop to Windows 10 and Audacity works fine on it.