WDM No Sound Fix for Win98, SE, ME

WDM No Sound Fix for Win98, SE, ME

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Keywords: Windows 98 98SE Win98 Win98SE ME WinME No Sound Missing Grey
Greyed Out Multimedia Properties WDM VXD Registry Enumerator HKLM Enum PNP
Audio Driver Regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Enum Root SwEnum Play Playback
Record Preferred Device
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Often I've seen posts over the years, and came across situations myself,
when upgrading sound on Win98/SE/ME (or the whole motherboard) with WDM
drivers will result in no sound.

Further symptoms of this problem include the audio device showing up
correctly in Device Manager, but in Multimedia Properties the audio
devices are greyed-out, not listed.

Attempts at deleting the sound devices in Device Manager then redetecting
them, fail, as do attempts to use a newer or older WDM driver. The
assumption is made that the rest of the system is working properly and has
the chipset drivers installed if not bundled with windows.

If a pre-Win98SE "VXD" type driver is available (typically listed as a
Win95, Win98, or Win9x driver) it should work, but the WDM driver requires
a registry entry that is often missing. Installing Windows overtop of
itself (aka- repair install) probably won't fix this problem, has not
fixed it on verified attempts. A clean installation of Windows should fix
the problem but how many of us really want to reinstall everything instead
of just fixing the probem?

If the sound failure is due to this missing registry entry (all
Win98/SE/ME systems should have the following registry entry), then adding
it may fix the no-sound problem. If, after a reboot the sound isn't
enabled after merging the following registry entries, (possibly after the
PNP wizard prompts for the Windows CD, installation files, to install a
few files) then remove the audio driver using Add/Remove Programs and/or
in Device Manager and reboot, reinstall the sound driver again. This is a
confirmed working fix for the scenario described.

To recreate the registry entry copy the following lines into a plain text
file and save it as "wdm_fix.reg", then merge it into the registry:

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REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\SwEnum]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\Root\SwEnum\0000]
"HardwareID"="SWENUM"
"Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e97d-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Class"="SYSTEM"
"Driver"="SYSTEM\\0001"
"ConfigFlags"=hex:00,40,00,00
"Mfg"="Microsoft"
"DeviceDesc"="Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator"
"Serial"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00