If you don't hear any sound through your speakers when playing a song, video, game, or other sound-related activities, review the sections below for help on troubleshooting the issue.

Check software volume control settings

Many software programs and games have settings for controlling sound output, and these settings can override the volume settings in Windows. Look for a speaker icon or sound settings in the software menu bar or status bar, and check if the sound is muted or turned down. Muted or very low sound is often a default sound setting in music or video playback software, and online video sites, like YouTube. Unmuting the sound or increasing the sound volume often fixes the problem.

• I looked on google and people seem to have problems with this, but with other programs, and the solution for them is quite different. Apparently the fixes there were simply to change the input to Microsoft's Sound mapper in whatever program, or something along those lines. My problem is that. I can't find or manage Microsoft Sound Mapper.
• Check the EventViewer logs for Applocker and AppxDeployment (under Application and Services Logs Microsoft Windows). Start layout not as expected. Make sure the Start layout is authored correctly. Ensure that the attributes Size, Row, and Column are specified for each application and are valid.

If the software's sound settings are not muted, and you increased the sound volume in the software settings, but you still have no sound, continue to the next section.

Check Windows volume control settings

Check for a small sound icon in the Windows notification area in the bottom right corner of the Windows desktop. If this icon is missing, follow the steps below. If you see this icon, skip to the next section.

Windows 10

2. Click the Taskbar and Navigation icon.

If you are using the Category view in the Control Panel, click the Appearance and Personalization option first, then click the Taskbar and Navigation option.

3. On the Taskbar page, scroll down to the Notification area section and click the Select which icons appear on the taskbar link.
4. Find the Volume option on the page. To the right of that option, make sure the switch is set to On. If it is not, click the switch to turn it to the On position. The switch is turned on when it is blue.

If you don't use the onboard sound, disable it in the bios (totally gone) or even in Windows Device Manager (sorta kinda gone) and those inactive devices will disappear completely from the sound settings and 'Windows awareness'. In this guide, we show you the steps to customize input and output settings on Windows 10 with the new Sound page in the Settings app included with the April 2018 Update.

If the top Volume option is greyed out, click the switch for Always show all icons in the notifications area to Off. Then switch the Volume option to the On position.

5. Close the Taskbar settings window.

Windows 8

1. Click the Taskbar icon.
2. On the Taskbar tab, click the Customize button next to the Notification area.
3. Scroll down in the list until you see the Volume option and a speaker icon. On the right side, in the drop-down menu, make sure Show icon and notifications is selected. If it is not, select this option.

If the drop-down list is grayed out, uncheck Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar.

5. If you changed the selection in the drop-down list, click OK in that window and the Taskbar Properties window and close the Control Panel.

Windows Vista or 7

1. Click the Taskbar and Start menu icon.
2. On the Taskbar tab, in the Notification area section, click the Customize button.
3. Scroll down in the list until you see the Volume option and a speaker icon. On the right side, in the drop-down menu, make sure Show icon and notifications is selected. If it is not, select this option.

If the drop-down list is grayed out, uncheck Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar.

5. If you changed the selection in the drop-down list, click OK in that window and the Taskbar and Start menu Properties window and close the Control Panel.

Windows XP

1. Open the Sounds and Audio Devices icon.
2. Verify the Place volume icon in the taskbarcheck box is checked. If this option is not available or is grayed out, skip to the next section of this page.
3. If you were able to check this box, click OK and close out of this window and the Control Panel.
4. Double-click the sound icon in the Systray and verify that all the sound volumes are mid-way or higher.

Windows 2000

1. Open the Sounds and Multimedia icon.
2. Verify the Show volume control on the taskbarcheck box is checked. If this option is not available or is grayed out, skip to the next section of this page.
3. If you were able to check this box, click OK and close out of this window and the Control Panel.
4. Double-click the sound icon in the Systray and verify that all the sound volumes are mid-way or higher.

Windows 95, 98, or ME

1. Open the Multimedia icon.
2. Check the check box for Show volume control on the taskbar. If this section is grayed out, change the playback Preferred device by clicking the down arrow and selecting the appropriate option. If that is also grayed out, skip to the next section of this page.
3. If you were able to check this box, click OK and close out of this window and the Control Panel.
4. Double-click the sound icon in the Systray and verify that all the sound volumes are mid-way or higher.

Verify the installed driver settings

2. Verify there isn't a conflict or error (yellow exclamation point or red X) next to any of the listed devices. If conflicts exist, skip down to the conflicts section.
3. Verify no Other devices are listed by clicking View at the top of the window and selecting Show hidden devices. If other devices are listed, skip down to the other devices section.
4. Verify the Sound, video and game controllers category is listed. If not, skip down to the missing sound card section.
5. If no conflicts or other devices are listed, and your sound card is listed with no conflicts, skip to the next section.

Conflicts section

If Device Manager reports conflicts, it's likely that either the appropriate drivers are not installed, or there's a device resource conflict. If you open the device that is conflicting and view the properties, additional details about the conflict may be listed. Additional information about error codes, and help with Device Manager, is on our Device Manager section.

If you cannot locate additional information about your issue or resolve it, follow the steps below. Logitech h390 windows 7 driver download.

1. Under Sound, video and game controllers, highlight each device and press the delete key to remove the device.
2. Reboot the computer.
3. As the computer is booting, the system detects the sound card and any of its devices and reinstall those devices. If prompted for a location of drivers, try pointing it to your sound card CD or your Windows CD. If this doesn't work or cannot locate the proper files, get the latest sound drivers from your sound card manufacturer.

Other devices section

If Other devices are listed, these could be the sound card or another conflicting device. If any other devices are listed, we recommend you remove those devices, reboot the computer, and let Windows re-detect the devices.

If this does not work, determine what device is not detected and resolve that issue first.

Missing sound card section

If you are missing the Sound, video and game controllers category in Device Manager, your sound card drivers may not be installed properly. Your sound card may also be disabled, malfunctioning, or unavailable. First, verify no conflicts or other devices are present in the Device Manager. Second, verify that the computer has a sound card and that it is enabled.

If this is an onboard sound card, you can verify that it is enabled in the CMOS setup.

If you have no adapters or cannot click the down arrow to select the correct adapter, close out of this window. In the Control Panel, double-click the System icon, click the Device Manager tab within Device Manager, and ensure there are no yellow ! or red X next to a device.

If you have either of these on any of your sound devices, remove everything under Sound, video and game controllers and reboot the computer. If, after rebooting the computer, you still have the same conflicts, double-click the conflicting device and refer to our Device Manager error codes section for additional information.

Verify speaker connections

Verify the speaker settings and speakers are not at fault by running through computer speaker troubleshooting.

Sound card drivers

Microsoft Sound Mapper Missing App

If the above recommendations don't help, remove all devices under Sound, video, and game controllers in the Device Manager and reboot the computer. Doing this causes Windows to reinstall all missing drivers. Polar precision performance software mac. Often, this process can correct corrupt drivers. If this does not work after rebooting the computer, download and install the latest sound card drivers from the computer or sound card manufacturer. A listing of manufacturer web pages for sound card drivers is on our sound card drivers page.

Defective hardware

Finally, if the above recommendations don't resolve your issue, the sound card is defective, or the operating system is corrupt. We recommend you contact the manufacturer of the sound card or computer for a replacement or additional recommendations.

Additional information

• See our sound and sound card definitions for further information and related links.

I use Sound Forge to record on to my laptop, and until very recently it's been working fine — until an error popped up when I opened the program. It said that the Microsoft Sound Mapper does not recognise or support this application due to rates and frequency settings. I have no idea what Microsoft Sound Mapper is. Could you guide me on how to solve this problem?

Now that the majority of audio interfaces have ASIO drivers, Microsoft's Sound Mapper device is almost completely redundant. However, in some cases it can be useful. For example, if you need to play old multimedia files, Sound Mapper can be used, as it can play back files with sample rates as low as 6kHz.

Microsoft Sound Mapper Missing Tool

Froilan Arevalo

PC music specialist Martin Walker replies: For once, this is an easy question to answer, since the only way you can get a 'Microsoft Sound Mapper' error is if you've selected this named option in Sound Forge as either your recording or playback device. So to cure your problem just open up the Sound Forge audio preferences dialogue and specifically select your audio interface as the playback device. If you see several entries relating to your audio interface, always use the one containing 'ASIO' in preference to any MME-WDM ones, as they will provide significantly lower latency.

Microsoft's Sound Mapper (which sometimes appears in audio applications as 'MME-WDM Microsoft Sound Mapper' or simply 'Wave Mapper') often becomes the default driver for both audio playback and recording after you install a new audio application, and it may if you've recently installed a new audio interface. However, it isn't really a driver, but a virtual device installed automatically with Windows, which simply results in your application using whatever default devices you've already chosen for both sound recording and sound playback in the Control Panel's 'Sounds and Audio Devices' applet.

It can be handy to select Sound Mapper in your audio application to enable an audio interface to run audio files at sample rates other than those the interface supports. For instance, attempting to play back an old 8-bit/11kHz multimedia file on ASIO drivers will often result in an error message, because most modern audio interfaces only support sample rates of 32kHz and above at either 16-bit or 24-bit resolution. However, if you choose Microsoft's Sound Mapper, it will use Microsoft's various codecs (coder-decoder algorithms) to convert this sample rate and bit-depth on-the-fly to one that is supported by your interface. In days of old, Sound Mapper could also be used to play back 16-bit files on 8-bit only soundcards, or stereo files on mono-only soundcards.

The Microsoft Sound Mapper Audio Device Is Missing

This is certainly handy in an emergency, but except in these special cases choosing Sound Mapper can cause problems, because it may continue performing sample-rate conversion without telling you, even on files directly supported by your soundcard. Since no conversion is 100 percent perfect, this results in a reduction in audio quality, and some users have even reported clipping and drop-out problems after selecting it for playback.

Also, if you choose the Sound Mapper as a driver option you won't be able to access more than a single stereo pair, no matter how many inputs and outputs your audio interface has. If your audio software lets you highlight multiple drivers, including the Sound Mapper, this may result in error messages such as 'Format Info Not Found', 'Cannot open ACM Stream', or 'Error Closing Output File'. In short, musicians should stick with ASIO drivers, and avoid Microsoft's Sound Mapper in almost all situations!