[paulb100]

Hi, Im totally gaboozled,
The Sound Scheme for XP isnt working and the volume icon wont display in the tray even though I have it selected in Audio options...
The soundcard driver is installed and working..I can play MP3s etc on media player and AVIs and DVDs sound work perfectly
The scheme is selected to be used and the all the settings for the soundcard etc are correct,
I tried system restore but somehow it has been corrupted also and fails on all restore points...
This problem arose about the time i installed then uninstalled NIMO Codec Pack...
(During installation it said that it will replace system files that would cause instability if they were changed but I know that sometimes when upgrading codecs you may have to do this, the Video codec package side of it conflicted with DivX so i removed NIMO completley and re-nstalled the AUDIO driver side of the package but still to no avail...)
when i open the Sound Scheme the sounds are there but the 'Play' button is greyed out (as if the sound file isn't in its folder) but when i press browse the files are all in the media folder and play with WMP ???
Any suggestions ???

[bob6715]

i think all you have to do is re- associate .wav files to hear sounds again, windows sounds are .wav so right click any one you have and select open with>choose windows media player program as default .
good luck

[Rollin' Rog]

There's a registry patch here for the app sounds: line 6, left pane:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Make sure it gets downloaded as a REGISTRY file, not a NOTEPAD file -- then run it and confirm the merge to the registry. Reboot if necessary.

If the files are there and there is nothing inherently wrong with your Sound Card installation, that should fix it.


Do make sure your sound card is the preferred device in Control Panel Sounds and Audio -- and under the hardware properties there, all the proper Windows codecs are present and enabled.

You may have to reinstall Windows Media player, I think, to get some of them back.

Or this might work:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[paulb100]

Thanks for the reply guys
It isnt wav association the files play ok externally
and the reg files from kellys korner or WMP9 codecs didnt work either
I have WMP 11 installed, im totally stuck and dont want to resort to using the factory restore util cos i will have re-install all my apps (about 60 of them)
I noticed in the Sounds and Audio Devices options, the soundcard is selected for sound and music playback and recording but not in MIDI or Voice playback and when i select the soundcard (Sigmatel standard built-in to laptop dell inspiron 1300) and Apply and ok then go back its changed it back over to a Blank entry ??? though this shouldn't affect the Sound playback???
Is there a codec for wav files? i notice that in the soundcard options somewhere where you can view all the codecs installed for it there a about 10 but not one that mentions .Wav but they do play ok in WMP11 so I cant understand whats happening there?
Any more suggestions guys?
thanks

[Rollin' Rog]

The Windows sound volume contros is sndvol32.exe and I'm inclined to believe something is wrong with the sound card drivers when this doesn't show in the system tray.

I have an Inspiron 1100 with Sigmatel, and the Midi device available there is only "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth".

In Sound playback there is only Sigmatel -- do you have other options?

Have you checked to see if this Media Control Device is present, enabled and working properly:

(MCI) Sound

it's in Media Control Devices Properties available in the Device Manager Sounds key.

Also another thing to try is to go to C:\Windows\INF (this is a "hidden" directory, you must have "show hidden files" enabled in Folder Options > View to find it) and locate

wdmaudio.inf

right click on that and select "install"; there will be no prompts or confirmations, but note any error messages.

Also make sure wdmaud.sys exists in the directory:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS

[paulb100]

Hi Rog,
I done what you said and installed wmdaudio.inf and made sure that sys file was there
and still didnt work, i noticed (though i think it might supposed to be like that because its drivers and not an actual device) that in the Media Control Devices where you said to make sure it was working well it said that device is working properly but the usage option was a blank entry and was greyed out so i cant change it to enable (use this device) but it reports that its working ok....

I dont think the soundcard drivers themselves are corrupt as everything else works fine (movies, mp3s etc) the Sound Scheme wav files play in WMP ???

I think its something like the driver that tells the soundcard to play the scheme wav files on the events is corrupt

Thanks for your help anyway but looks like we might be beaten on this one lol

Paul

[ozrom1e]

Ok if it is not the sound card drivers then it has got to be something in the Windows system and finding this is going to be a lot of work. To avoid the lot of work let's do this.

First please backup all of your important data to another Media like CD-r(s) or Dvd.

When this is finished you will need your Windows Install Disk and the key code from the COA

This is a non-destructive way of repairing Windows and should fix the problem and if you have Service Pack 2 installed you might have to re-install that and all of the Windows Update.

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install = http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

[Rollin' Rog]

Are we talking about the same MCI device? Here is what it looks like on my "sigmatel" Inspiron notebook (actually a bit different than the desktop), see screenshot.

Have you reinstalled the sound card drivers from the Dell site?

And you can play .wav files just fine outside of the Windows sound scheme? Meaning if you navigate to the c:\windows\media folder, you can run them manually from there?

I think the key, somehow, is that Windows volume icon; it should appear when checked and have functionality.

I know if I rename wdmaud.sys, it will dissappear and present just the symptoms you describe.

The driver package for this should be included in the vendor's sound card driver installation.

[paulb100]

OZrom1e - I dont have the XP cd for this installation....

Rog - yes its the same but i notice on yours .."(MCI) Sound".. I dont have this .dll in the list
i think this might be part of the problem
Ive re-installed soundcard drivers from dell's website... and no joy?

[ozrom1e]

Here is an article from Microsoft on wdmaud.sys that might solve that problem

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=325154

Do you have a recovery disk?

[paulb100]

have recovery partition but dont wanna use it as it will reset to factory etc and will lose all apps installed..

It is xp home and i have an xp pro cd can i use that 1 to repair the home edition?
it doesnt belong to this installation...

Also i dont get any 'error' messages... that M$ post is no good
if you read my previous post it will explain more

[ozrom1e]

You should be able to use the Windows XP Pro as an upgrade to do an install but just in the way of being safe I suggest backing up all of your data to a media like CD-R(s) or DVD. Please do this before we do anything else it is most important.

[paulb100]

I cant upgrade from home to pro on this laptop ( i shouldnt have to just to fix this error)
as the home comes with this laptop and the pro i have used on my other laptop...
Do you mean i could use the XP-Pro to 'repair' the Home edition?
I wouldn't like to try it as its my girlfriends laptop and i dont want to render the 'Legal' XP into an 'Illegal' version by upgrading to Pro just to fix the sound scheme, if i was to do anything like that i would just use the recovery 'Partition' and restore her laptop to factory settings etc. and re-install my apps.....

[Rollin' Rog]

The "pro" edition can neither repair or upgrade for you. If it were the same version you could repair with it.

Your mciwave.dll is, I think, the same as (MCI) Sound; at least it's a Microsoft file.

Is the service pack on your OS the original, or an upgrade?

If it's an upgrade, you can remove and reinstall it using SP2 available from MS.

I overlooked this before, but in the "Audio Codecs" where you should find Windows Media Audio > Properties -- is it checked "use this audio codec"?

If you need to reinstall the standard WMP supported codecs, including apparently all the Windows Media Audio codecs, you should be able to do it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Or through Windows Media Player:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=291818

[paulb100]

hi rog
yep the windows media audio button is 'use this devices' like yours is in the thumbnail but the priority for mine is only 2, i have already tried codecs from that link, no joy,

the SP2 isnt separate installation... do you really think uninstalling it then re-installing will fix it? i dont want to do this as i said its my girlfriends laptop and i dont want to render any warranty on it useless (mind you it was only a 90-day warranty so..) it doesnt have a back-up disc but has a hidden partition of 3gb with factory restore on it instead

I did mention at the start of the thread that it happened (I think) when i started installing/uninstalling codec packages to see which worked best with WinAVI and Im sure the culprit was NIMO Codec package as it replaced system files and xp warned it could cause instability but it didnt back them up and replace them when uninstalled (I then installed the audio codec package side of NIMO as the video codecs didnt work but still didnt fix the problem)
What do you recommend now Rog?
You know more about drivers and dlls than i do by the looks of it, i just know my way around windows pretty good