Installing on Vista - what Audacity should tell you

[x00x]

The First Thing To Do When Dealing With Installation Problems that Audacity Fails To Say Right Up Front

Audacity by far is the best tool of its kind. I've tried all the various offerings some of which I use a secondary system but none comes close to Audacity.

Unfortunately there is a very steep learning curve involved, at least there was for me.

I've experienced the terrible frustration, difficulty of getting Audacity on Vista enabled as many of us have struggled to come to grips with know all too well. The Audacity forum have been the best source for finding solutions to what I have found to be one of the most problematic, byzantine installation procedures I've ever dealt with. One two separate occasions I've struggled for hours trying to get Audacity to play. The first time was about a year ago after many hours of desperate searching and being guided by administrators to the solution here at the forum.

I made a mental note of it because it was the very solution to my installation problem and had it been offered immediately as one of the first things to being informed about instead of having to find it under some rock if you will, many, many hours of frustration, delay could have been avoided if the good folks at Audacity were to make this indispensable bit of assistance, guidance a higher priority as one of the best solutions to installing Audacity I have come to know.

I say this because a year later, here and now, I found myself wracking my brain, body, soul to get Audacity running again on my Vista Desktop, my efforts disrupting for several weeks after not being able to find the solution, remember what it was the last time I installed it successfully.

Had it been so, having either remembered how I got it to work last time or had Audacity thought of presenting it up front, as one of the first things to be informed of, I would not have been so frustrated or forced to wait several weeks to spend time trying to find the solution here at the forum under some
rock after many hours of intense research.

Here is what should be said first, up front as a likely solution to installation problems.

Open Up the System Mixer

Where you'll see two tabs
Playback<<<and>>>>Recording

Right Click on Each Tab Reveals New Menu
Make Sure to Check
1. Show Disabled Devices
2. Show Disconnected Devices.

Had I known this up front, remembered it from last time I would have saved many, many hours of aggravation,frustration.
And now, so can you.

[waxcylinder]

x00x,

thanks for this helpful post - I have edited the title of your thread so that it may be found more readily by people using the Search function to find it in the future.

I will bring this post to the attention of the developers.

WC

[Gale Andrews]

Thanks, Peter. Please note, this is absolutely nothing to do with "failed installation of Audacity" and should be moved to the Windows 1.2 Forum.

Unless you get an operating system message that Audacity did not install properly, you have installed it (correctly). In almost no cases does Audacity not install properly (except for a specific issue with 1.2.6 on Vista where Audacity can install in the wrong compatibility mode). In almost no cases does re-installing Audacity fix any *Audacity* problems. Resetting Preferences can often do so.

What you are discussing is mainly a *Vista* problem (as far as I know) - namely, it does not expose "disconnected" or "disabled" devices to audio software. I say "as far as I know" because it has not been tested if other audio software can detect disconnected/disabled devices on Vista, but I strongly suspect not. Cluttering the Audacity installer with information specific to only one version of Windows would confuse users and is not appropriate.

The information about making sure devices are connected and enabled (in the system mixer, not in Device Manager, so I will edit your post accordingly) is already available on the Vista page on our Wiki:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... ista_OS#cp

and can also be found from this FAQ:
http://audacityteam.org/help/faq?s=reco ... lbar-input

by following the link to:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... bar_Issues

The FAQs will be updated for 1.4 and I think there may be a case for working the disconnected/disabled issue into the Mixer Toolbar FAQ (or possibly having a Vista/Windows 7 specific FAQ). You should also be aware that this issue does not affect everyone - what typically happens is that microphone only is enabled, but other inputs such as line-in and "Stereo Mix" (if provided) are not.

Really the moral of the story is the same as always - read the FAQs and the Wiki if you have problems (as stated right at the top of http://audacityteam.org/contact/).

Thanks for your input.


Gale

[waxcylinder]

Please note, this is absolutely nothing to do with "failed installation of Audacity" and should be moved to the Windows 1.2 Forum.

Moved as requested.

WC