Audacity not recording

[dkratz]

First time using Audacity I get an error message when trying to record. Audacity says I have no capture device when clearly I have a microphone that Windows recognizes. What is wrong with this Audacity program?

[steve]

You've probably either not set up Audacity to use the microphone, or not set up your computer to make the microphone available for recording.
Why don't you tell us a bit more about your system, including which version of Windows, which exact version of Audacity (look in Help menu > About Audacity), what sort of microphone (in particular if it's a USB microphone and if not how it's connected to the computer) and what you have done so far to set it all up.

[dkratz]

Strange. I shut down the program accidentally while looking for answers to your question. When I started it up again, it was able to record. Very strange.

[steve]

If you're using a USB microphone, it must be connected and recognised by Windows before you open Audacity.