Audacity Forum

I know this is possible because I have done it before on my computer, but after crashing my computer and then reinstalling Audacity the settings changed and now when I play a song/video/game and I hit record the program fails to record a thing.

I had a look under Audio I/O and tried every setting that made sense to no success.
The recording devices avaliable are
Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input
Microphone (but I don't own one)

Am I missing the device?
I'm running vista if that helps

I'm running vista if that helps

It helps us, but it certainly doesn't help you.

The state of audio drivers for Vista is abysmal. This wiki page has info on how to set up for Vista users.

The gist of it is that you need to set Audacity to use the Microsoft Sound Mapper input and then set the right input in the Audio Control Panel settings (the wiki says how to get here).

The biggest problem most Vista users have is that their drivers simply don't support that input. If that's the case then you have three options:
1) update your drivers to drivers that offer that input (this won't work for a lot of people, but does work for some).
2) run a cable from the Line Out to the Line In.
3) buy new hardware.