Hi,

I have a strange problem with my PC - a couple of days ago everything was working perfectly.

Now all of the Windows XP system sounds have stopped working, i can play MP3's, Games and Video and sound works fine.

But for applications like MSN Messenger, Outlook and the Windows default sounds nothing works. I can go into the sound properties and manually press play on a sound and it works but doesnt seem to work on its own. The PC speaker beeps instead, i have tried installing the sound drivers again for my PC but that didnt help.

It has worked flawlessly for 2 years and now has stopped. I am running Windows XP Pro Service Pack 1a.

I hope someone can help me with this as i dont really fancy re-installing my PC just for sound.

Thanks,
HM

hi this happend to me at xmas and it took me months to sort out!

open regedit and go to HKEY current user and in the right pane should read "(default) REG_SZ (value not set)"
if not then delete the value and Winxp will create a new one. then your sound will be back

Hi there,

I have the same problems and did the "go to HKEY current user and in the right pane should read "(default) REG_SZ (value not set)"
if not then delete the value and Winxp will create a new one."  This didn't work for me.  My default Windows Sound Scheme appears, BUT the .wav sound button is grey out.  I can play music using Windows Media Player 8, but I can't seem to play any music using iTune or Roxio.  My pc is a Sony Vaio RX550, speakers are Vaio as well.  I've gone to Sony unhelpful website, went to update my Roxio 6 version, updated my iTune...uninstall and reinstall both iTune & Roxio software as well as Windows Player 8...nothing seems to work.

Hey,

I'm having the same (unresolved) problem too. It seems to have started after I installed Acoustica Mixcraft 4 (a digital audio workstation program), and since I have uninstalled Mixcraft, reinstalled my drivers (normal mode, safe mode, etc.), and system restored a while back.

My only remedy at the moment is to set the "No Sounds" scheme in Control Panel and mute my PC Beep in Windows Mixer. Other audio works just fine, so it's not an urgent thing, but I (unlike others) actually enjoyed getting notifications via sound, no matter how annoying they were.

If anyone has any other solutions (I've tried the above ones), I'd like to know. Thanks!

 Welcome to the forums..

 

The only way to get normal sound back after a program has caused the corruption.. it isn't going to be uninstalling..  You'll have to get a hold of tech support for the program and they will typically have a "removal" tool.  These types of tools remove registry entries that uninstallers never do.

KDML105:

Hey,

I'm having the same (unresolved) problem too. It seems to have started after I installed Acoustica Mixcraft 4 (a digital audio workstation program), and since I have uninstalled Mixcraft, reinstalled my drivers (normal mode, safe mode, etc.), and system restored a while back.

My only remedy at the moment is to set the "No Sounds" scheme in Control Panel and mute my PC Beep in Windows Mixer. Other audio works just fine, so it's not an urgent thing, but I (unlike others) actually enjoyed getting notifications via sound, no matter how annoying they were.

If anyone has any other solutions (I've tried the above ones), I'd like to know. Thanks!

I have the exact same problem, and it also occured after I installed Mixcraft. I went to their support forums but they (as you'd expect) assured me it had nothing to do with their program, because apparently it doesn't cause any changes to the registry or install anything that could cause such a thing. That came directly from the developers.

I did a system restore to before Mixcraft was installed, and that made my sounds work again. Then I reinstalled Mixcraft, and the sounds kept working. So I thuoght ok, maybe it wasn't Mixcraft. But in a few days they stopped working again.

Now I don't know what to make of it, was it Mixcraft doing it or not? I have no idea.

I've googled this problem high and low and this is the only topic I've found in which someone has the same problem as me.

Basically to me, the startup and shutdown sounds don't play. The "new mail" sound has been replaced by an annoying loud beep from the box. The usb connection sounds don't play either. When I go to the control panel - sound devices, the wav sounds are all there, they are assigned correctly and I can play them when I push the little play button. But in practice they just don't work. 

I've tried the registry edit suggested above but it did nothing.

On most other websites the only solution to similar problems that I've seen has been "reinstall windows" which is ridiculous, I'm not going to do that. There must be some other way. If anyone has any updates or new suggestions, I'm subscribed to this thread and I'm all ears!

 Got the same problem. Installed Mixcraft 4.2, afterwards Thunderbird new mail sound disappeared. I wasnt using system sounds, as they disturb me a bit, but when I realized that activesync does also just ugly beep, I checked other sounds and they are all gone. Checking/unchecking button is tweakui doesnt help, neither does reinstalling sound drivers or uninstalling Mixcraft. For performance issues, I have my system restore permanently turned off, so going back is not possible for me. Registry patch issued above did not work either.

Any other stuff plays well, only system sounds seem to be blocked some way and I think that its caused by Mixcraft installation. I will try to resolve and post solution when done

Problem resolved. All sounds back to normal.

I used a little help from google, finding solution in K-Lite Codec Pack tools. I installed K-Lite Codec Pack, newest version and tried to continue as advised on nosystemsound.com. But I was getting no registry fix option during the install, neither with 4.2 version, nor with 3.3 version. Later I found out, that this option is available with both versions after install in Codec Tweak Tool, installed with K-Lite Codec Pack, under submenu Tools in start menu folder. Well, I used available fixes, but it didnt work instantly after reboot, so I deleted once more registry key mentioned in one of the above posts and did registry fix using Codec Tweak Tool once more, restarted and voila! its working now. After all this mess, I dont think I am putting Mixcraft on my working computer again...

Wait wait, I don't know what you're talking about, what K-Lite codec pack? I just searched my computer for it, I don't seem to have it. Is that something that comes with Mixcraft or something separate?

As for me, I've found a clumsy solution for the time being - the sounds only seem to be broken for the user account I was using. So I created a new windows user account, and now I'm using that instead. The sounds work here, so far so good. But it's not the ideal solution clearly.

 

Problem resolved, too! I used a combination of the above suggestions and got my sound back, and I still have Mixcraft installed. I even had the K-Lite Codec Pack installed before and have used the Codec Tweak Tool, but the option to fix the registry was greyed-out before (my computer insisted that everything was fine), so I didn't realize its significance. But anyway,

 @ teapot and anybody else who still has this problem, try what I did:

1. Using regedit (Start --> Run --> enter "regedit"), I navigated to the root of HKEY_CURRENT_USER and completely deleted the (Default) value (right click value --> delete). This reset its setting to "(no value set)".
2. Use the Codec Tweak Tool, I selected "Fix Broken Sound" and clicked "Next" to let the program do its thing.
• This tool comes with the K-Lite Codec Pack which can be found here, or can be downloaded stand-alone from here.
3. Restart, and check sound... and lo and behold, it worked (for me).

I'll keep this thread updated if problems re-arise, etc. Hope it works for everyone!

KDML105:

Problem resolved, too! I used a combination of the above suggestions and got my sound back, and I still have Mixcraft installed. I even had the K-Lite Codec Pack installed before and have used the Codec Tweak Tool, but the option to fix the registry was greyed-out before (my computer insisted that everything was fine), so I didn't realize its significance. But anyway,

 @ teapot and anybody else who still has this problem, try what I did:

1. Using regedit (Start --> Run --> enter "regedit"), I navigated to the root of HKEY_CURRENT_USER and completely deleted the (Default) value (right click value --> delete). This reset its setting to "(no value set)".

Yeah I did that, it did nothing!

KDML105:

Use the Codec Tweak Tool, I selected "Fix Broken Sound" and clicked "Next" to let the program do its thing.

• This tool comes with the K-Lite Codec Pack which can be found here, or can be downloaded stand-alone from here.
1. Restart, and check sound... and lo and behold, it worked (for me).

I'll keep this thread updated if problems re-arise, etc. Hope it works for everyone!

But I don't have the K-lite Codec Pack...  I don't think anyway. I searched the whole C drive and found nothing. Am I looking in the wrong place? How do I find if I have it? Cos if I don't have it then that couldn't have caused the problem for me, if I got you right.

teapot:

But I don't have the K-lite Codec Pack...  I don't think anyway. I searched the whole C drive and found nothing. Am I looking in the wrong place? How do I find if I have it? Cos if I don't have it then that couldn't have caused the problem for me, if I got you right.

 

Hey! The K-Lite Codec Pack doesn't come with Windows; it's an optional download used to allow for playback of various audio/video file formats. It shouldn't have anything to do with your inability to play system sounds (but if you can't play some non-system sounds, it would make sense since you don't have it). The Codec Pack is available for download at http://www.codecguide.com in case you wanted to try it out. But if you don't feel like installing the entire pack, the tool used to fix your registry (after deleting the value before) can also be found by itself here.

The only other problem that I encountered before it started working for me again was that before, I never completely deleted the (Default) value in the first step. (I opened it and changed the value to a blank value, which wasn't good enough... I had to delete it completely by right-clicking the value and selecting "delete" which reset it to (no value set). ) So if it's not saying (no value set), you need to make sure of that. That way, the Codec Tweak Tool from step 2 will work properly.

Hello,

 I have just registered here to report this.

After launching Mixcraft the windows sounds stopped working, I could play games, watch movies and all that stuff. They all worked just the windows soulds.

 So this is a mixcraft problem.

To fix this I did:

START > RUN > type "regedit"
Clicn on: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Then on the right side you will see (Default) and some other strange numbers under it. RIght click (default) and click delete.

 That's all. I also had the COdec Tweak Tool but it wasn't necesarry.

Thank you KDML 105! This worked for me! I tried many different things, many different sites, and this was so easy. I did not have Mixcraft installed. YouTube and other embedded videos would not play sound, my Windows XP log in would not play, on and on. Thanks a bunch! You saved me from reinstalling XP....my next choice. Hope everything works out fine from here on out. Again, thanks a million!

Well, I can only think of one more thing to try. Reformating your hard drive. It cures all ails, and conditions lol. I can only think that the windows sounds have been deleted in some way. Try placing your own sound in place of the windows default sounds. If it still does not work, try reinstalling windows.