FIX: Microphone Not Working After Windows 10 Upgrade
There are abundant audio issues and problems on Windows 10, especially in its earlier builds. One of the most frustrating and common issues that Windows 10 users face is the malfunctioning of the computer’s microphone following an upgrade. In most cases, this issue relates to the audio driver on the computer. Luckily, this problem is fixable and has many potential solutions. Here are the four most effective ones to resolve this issue and restore your computer’s microphone function:
Solution 1: Uninstall your audio driver,
Uninstalling your audio driver has pretty good chances of getting your microphone to start working again. Don’t worry about uninstalling your audio driver as your computer will automatically reinstall it once you reboot.
Right-click on the Start Menu button to open the WinX Menu. Click on Device Manager in the WinX menu.
Double-click on Sound, video and game controllers to expand that section. Locate your audio driver (Realtek High Definition Audio – for example) and right-click on it. Click on Uninstall. Restart your computer.
Once your computer boots up, your audio driver will be detected and reinstalled automatically, and your microphone should start working again after that happens.
Solution 2: Make sure that your microphone has been enabled
Right-click on the Volume icon in the system tray and click on Recording devices.
Right-click on an empty space in the window. Ensure both the ‘Show disconnected devices’ and ‘Show disabled devices’ options have check marks. If they don’t, click on each to enable them and a check mark will appear beside them.
Right-click on Microphone and click on Properties.
Make sure that the dropdown menu in front of ‘Device usage’ is set to ‘Use this device (enable).’ If it is set to ‘Don’t use this device (disable),’ click on the dropdown menu to open it and select ‘Use this device (enable).’ Click on ‘Apply’ and then on ‘OK’ to exit. Now, check to see if your microphone has started working.
Solution 3: Disable any and all audio enhancements,
If you have any audio enhancements enabled on your computer, they may be messing around with your computer’s microphone and causing it to not work. If that is the case, you can go here and perform Solution 4 to disable any and all audio enhancements that have been turned on, effectively fixing the issue.
Solution 4: Switch to Windows’ generic audio driver
If none of the solutions listed and described above work for you, there’s a pretty good chance that switching to Windows’ generic audio driver – an audio driver included by default on all computers running the Windows OS – will get your microphone working again. To discontinue using your computer’s audio driver and begin using the generic Windows audio driver, follow the steps in Solution 3 at this link.
