Sunday, August 30, 2009

No DVD Sound in Windows 7

I installed Windows 7 on an older (4 years) laptop this past weekend and encountered a rather irksome problem that has a very simple fix.

Symptoms:
  • Audio works fine, until you stick in a DVD and try to play it with WMP12: no sound.
  • WMP12 playing mp3's is fine, but stick in a DVD: no sound.
  • Load a DVD ISO on a virtual drive and try to play: no sound.
Because of some trouble I had with the Realtek drivers for windows 7, and the Sony DVD drive, I was not certain at this point where precisely the problem lay. Searching a bit for Realtek, DVD and Sony's DW-D56A didn't turn anything up, so I started looking more broadly.

Turns out a post on AVForums by Damernath pointed out a very simple solution that worked like a charm. I repeat below for your benefit:
  1. Go to: Control Panel -> Sound
  2. On the "Playback" tab select "Speakers" and click "Properties"
  3. On the "Advanced" tab uncheck "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device"
That's it. Restart WMP and watch your DVD glory.

1 comment:

sphinx of fortune said...

woooo!!! Thanks!!! - I scoured the internet for days and finally gave up as my speakers would freak out whenever I tried to play a dvd. Just googled again after months of not even turning the laptop on and yours was the first fix I found. it works!!!