No system sounds work but all audio elsewhere plays.

[MarCost]

Don't know if anyone in this forum is still active but I need help with an old Windows 8.1 system of mine.

Just to preface this, here are things I've already tried that didn't fix anything:
- All audio levels in my sound mixer are maxed out and none are muted.
- All audio playback devices are enabled.
- I've tried setting the "system sound scheme" to default.
- I've also tried customizing the system sounds by using custom ".wav" sounds.
- I'm not using any custom windows themes of any kind.
- I've tested using various other speakers.
- I've tried using various other earphones/headphones.

The system sounds don't seem to play at all. As in, no system sounds work but weirdly enough,
- If you try to customize the system sounds in control panel, you can click the "Test" button and they play the audio just fine.
- Creating another admin user account and testing the system sounds there, they work there but not on my main (and only) admin account.

All other audio also works fine:
- Browser audio works (firefox/chrome/youtube/etc.)
- Audio from games work
- Audio from any other media program works (VLC/Music Players/etc.)

It's literally just the system sounds that don't seem to play anywhere else on my main admin user account... I found a very similar, very identical problem someone else had, but it happened to someone else on a Windows 10 system over on the Windows 10 Forums. The solution that fixed their problem over there required registry editing and I'm afraid to try that out unless anyone else using 8.1 has a solution to this that could help me out without having to open regedit or do a clean OS install? Please?

 

[Bree]

Don't know if anyone in this forum is still active but I need help with an old Windows 8.1 system of mine.

Welcome to Eight Forums.
Yes, it is still active. A bit quiet, but only because not so many come here to ask questions now.....

I found a very similar, very identical problem someone else had, but it happened to someone else on a Windows 10 system over on the Windows 10 Forums. The solution that fixed their problem over there required registry editing and I'm afraid to try that out unless anyone else using 8.1 has a solution to this that could help me out without having to open regedit or do a clean OS install? Please?

Much of the registry is the same in 10 as it is in 8.1. Post a link to the Ten Forums solution and we can check if that's the case here.

 

[MarCost]

Welcome to Eight Forums.
Yes, it is still active. A bit quiet, but only because not so many come here to ask questions now.....

Much of the registry is the same in 10 as it is in 8.1. Post a link to the Ten Forums solution and we can check if that's the case here.

Oh hey Bree. Hi. Glad to hear that, thanks for trying to help out.

Here's the link to the identical problem over on the tenforums that also contains a solution:

> Page with regedit solution.
> Main page of the topic with similar symptoms.

But like I said, I'm extremely reluctant to try it because it deals with the registry after all, and I know how delicate and dangerous that is to tamper with. Specially when someone doesn't know what they're doing... (that's me. I'm that someone ). I actually found that solution googling windows 8.1 specifically, oddly enough.

 

[Bree]

Oh hey Bree. Hi. Glad to hear that, thanks for trying to help out.

Here's the link to the identical problem over on the tenforums that also contains a solution:

> Page with regedit solution.
> Main page of the topic with similar symptoms.

But like I said, I'm extremely reluctant to try it because it deals with the registry after all, and I know how delicate and dangerous that is to tamper with. Specially when someone doesn't know what they're doing... (that's me. I'm that someone ). I actually found that solution googling windows 8.1 specifically, oddly enough.

That is a weird issue, every key in the Registry has a (Default) REG_SZ string, and the one for the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key should always be (Default) (value not set), I have never seen it say anything else. This applies to all versions of Windows, be it XP/Vista/7/8/10/11. If your (Default) value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER says anything other than (value not set) then it should be safe to delete it and let Windows recreate it with the correct value.

 

[MarCost]

That is a weird issue, every key in the Registry has a (Default) REG_SZ string, and the one for the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key should always be (Default) (value not set), I have never seen it say anything else. This applies to all versions of Windows, be it XP/Vista/7/8/10/11. If your (Default) value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER says anything other than (value not set) then it should be safe to delete it and let Windows recreate it with the correct value.

So I just delete it like this?:

It's guaranteed that windows will just automatically make another default key and won't affect my system in any way, no problem? Would I have to restart the pc after deleting for it to recreate the key or no? Just making double sure before I do anything. (that's a screenshot of what my HKEY_CURRENT_USER looks like btw.)

 

[Bree]

So I just delete it like this?....

It's guaranteed that windows will just automatically make another default key and won't affect my system in any way, no problem? Would I have to restart the pc after deleting for it to recreate the key or no? Just making double sure before I do anything. (that's a screenshot of what my HKEY_CURRENT_USER looks like btw.)

Yes, it's quite safe. Here I've set mine to have some text, then deleted it. No restart needed, Windows creates the correct value straight away. The only reason to restart would be if the registry change doesn't restore your system sounds immediately, you may need a restart for it to take effect.

 

[MarCost]

Ok wow, thanks for the help Bree. It really was instantaneously recreated after deleting it. And also-- IT WORKED! Doing the same solution from the similar problem over on tenforums legitimately did fix the same problem on 8.1. Wow.

So yeah, thanks again for replying and helping out Bree. I think I'll go register over on the Windows 10 forums just to thank the person who originally posted the problem and the solution to this.

 

[Bree]

thanks again for replying and helping out Bree. I think I'll go register over on the Windows 10 forums just to thank the person who originally posted the problem and the solution to this.

Glad to have helped (if only to reassure you that it was safe to do).