Windows update disappeared my headset

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Grifman
Posts: 21196
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:17 pm

Windows update disappeared my headset

Post by Grifman »

So, I was playing some games this morning and had headset sound as usual. However, this evening, I had no sound. When I checked Control Panel and Device Manager, my headphone were not to be found. I changed out several USB ports but still no luck. After some other checks/tests, I assumed that it was hardware problem and my headphones had gone bad but that still seemed very unlikely to me. I had trouble believing that. So on a whim, I did a system restore to Win 10 from yesterday. And lo and behold, my head phones appeared and they worked. So it has to be the Win10 update, right?

So what am I to do? When Win10 upgrades I am going to presumably lose my sound again. Any ideas here?
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Anonymous Bosch
Posts: 10512
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:09 pm
Location: Northern California [originally from the UK]

Re: Windows update disappeared my headset

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Grifman wrote: Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:06 pm So, I was playing some games this morning and had headset sound as usual. However, this evening, I had no sound. When I checked Control Panel and Device Manager, my headphone were not to be found. I changed out several USB ports but still no luck. After some other checks/tests, I assumed that it was hardware problem and my headphones had gone bad but that still seemed very unlikely to me. I had trouble believing that. So on a whim, I did a system restore to Win 10 from yesterday. And lo and behold, my head phones appeared and they worked. So it has to be the Win10 update, right?

So what am I to do? When Win10 upgrades I am going to presumably lose my sound again. Any ideas here?
Try using the Debloat Windows 10 script created by Chris Titus to configure your Windows Update service to download security updates only. You can see how this works in his Youtube video below:



To fire it up, just open Powershell with Admin privileges, i.e. type Windows Powershell in the start menu search, right click on Windows Powershell, and choose Run as administrator. Then copy and paste the following into your Powershell prompt, and hit enter:

Code: Select all

iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://git.io/JJ8R4'))
Once the script is running, hit the 'Security Updates Only' button under the 'Windows Update' section. This makes sure you will now only be downloading essential security updates instead of the typical bloaty feature update garbage that more often than not causes precisely the type of problems you described. As Titus explains in that video, those feature updates essentially make you a guinea pig for Microsoft. Switching to security updates-only means your Windows Update service will only download patched security exploits and vulnerabilities without all the additional cruft.
Last edited by Anonymous Bosch on Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Victoria Raverna
Posts: 5012
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:23 am
Location: Jakarta

Re: Windows update disappeared my headset

Post by Victoria Raverna »

Grifman wrote: Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:06 pm So, I was playing some games this morning and had headset sound as usual. However, this evening, I had no sound. When I checked Control Panel and Device Manager, my headphone were not to be found. I changed out several USB ports but still no luck. After some other checks/tests, I assumed that it was hardware problem and my headphones had gone bad but that still seemed very unlikely to me. I had trouble believing that. So on a whim, I did a system restore to Win 10 from yesterday. And lo and behold, my head phones appeared and they worked. So it has to be the Win10 update, right?

So what am I to do? When Win10 upgrades I am going to presumably lose my sound again. Any ideas here?
No. It can be something else. When you do system restore, you go back to a previous state. The cause of the problem can be windows update, but it can also be from something else.

Did you try to unplug the usb headset, reboot Windows then plug it in before you did the system restore?
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