Enabling disabled sound devices in Windows 7/ Vista

[whomper]

http://wiki.xfire.com/wiki/index.php/He ... s_in_Vista

A typical problem with sound recording in Windows Vista is that the required mixer devices are disabled by default. Normally Vista only allows you to select between Microphone and Line In inputs, neither of them being very good ways to get your in-game audio recorded to videos. This typical situation is visible on the screenshot to the right, only two choices are available for Xfire.

However, most sound hardware drivers actually allow you to enable mixer devices that can be used to directly record the sound you hear from your speakers, i.e. your game sounds. To be able to use these in Xfire you need to first enable them. This document is to help you enabling these devices in Windows Vista.

Note: the sound device names are different in different computers. The screen shots in this document are made in Virtual PC, so the sound card is named Microsoft Virtual Machine Audio Device Driver. In your case the name is very likely something else, but that does not invalidate these instructions.


Step 1: Access Control Panel from the Start menu:

Only Microphone and Line In inputs visible in Windows Vista.


Step 2: Switch to Classic View and double click on the Sound icon:

Windows Vista Control Panel in Classic View illustrating where to find the Sound icon.


Step 3: Switch to Recording tab and right click on the box listing the current devices and select Show Disabled Devices from the context menu that appears:

Windows Vista Sound settings on Recording tab showing the context menu where Disabled Devices can be made visible.


Step 4: You should now see all the sound devices the system can provide. Right click on the disabled device you want to enable and choose Enable from the menu that appears:

Windows Vista Sound settings on Recording tab showing the context menu where a disabled device can be enabled.

To mimimize problems with Xfire you might also want to try setting the selected device to be the default mixer by clicking on it and then clicking on Set Default button. The default device is marked with the green symbol, in the above screenshot Microphone is selected as default.

After you press OK the newly enabled device should also appear in Xfire's options. Note that you need to re-open the Xfire Options window for Xfire to show the changes made in Control Panel.

[Gale Andrews]

Whomper, I do think this post is a bit superfluous, although you are trying to help. We already have this information on our own Wiki. And it applies to Windows 7 just the same.

Maybe a better approach would be to have a Sticky in the Windows Beta Forum. I've moved this topic there, anyway.


Gale

[whomper]

it seemed like a good alternative

wiki info is not always easy for folks to find
and is not always complete and clear
sometimes another view lights the old bulb so you can say aha

[Gale Andrews]

Hi Whomper

If you would like to help answering questions on a regular basis, I would expect you to be familiar with our own documentation (Wiki and FAQs) and provide direct links to them in your answers in preference to linking to an identical source elsewhere. The link to the Windows system mixer is right on the front page of the Wiki.

If you feel our documentation is not as good as it might be, please make a suggestion for improving it, which will benefit all our users.

This doesn't apply to the other two external links you posted yesterday which were more self-contained and didn't have exact equivalents in our documentation - thanks for those.

A handy technique for giving canned answers is to use some document or clipboard manager where you can keep all our links ready to paste into your answers. Have you thought about that? You can even copy an answer from myself or one of the moderators if you like. Spend some of your time looking at the other answers and seeing how it's done, as well as answering directly yourself.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Whomper has made some suggestions about making the Forum links to the Wiki more accessible/relevant, which I have moved to http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 457#p93846 and replied there.


Gale