Microphone delay when recording in Windows 7

I am more than tired of all of this. The more I play with the recording properties the more I am irritated with it. Microphone delay is just one way recording functionality has been messed up.

PLEASE JUST PUT IT BACK TO HOW IT WAS WITH WIN XP (i liked having a recording mixer too, i liked stereo mixer being and able to record the sounds of my computer!)

Looking forward to seeing it up our incessant ridiculous Windows Updates of (invisible) fixes. Will be excited to see one make a pleasant difference for our computer experience. I'm not joking. Just put it back! Don't fix what isn't broke. We love all the other improvements but if you make the coolest car with square wheels, that just isn't gonna work for people. That's how I feel with Windows 7 as a musician... AND general computer enthusiast.

Not trying to be a jerk, just serious! Your commercial gloats about how you listen to your customers because you added that pretty feature where you hover your mouse and you can see an example of what that program is doing. WOOPTY DOO LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS, MS! Only Chris responds. WE'RE NOT BEING JERKS WE'RE TRYING TO HELP YOU IMPROVE YOUR SYSTEM FOR THE WHOLEWORLD.

p.s. Interesting to note that my gf's laptop had win xp, recording properties were normal no delay etc. Win 7, same issues we all experience. You can't tell me it's the hardware or drivers or anything but Windows! And that tells me YOU CAN REPROGRAM IT BACK.. it had to be reprogrammed in the first place! At least offer us the choice to pick which sound subsystem we want! Classic or bogus style.

http://scodal.com

Thank you Tricky2k and Chris.  Yes, you're right in that I was using the HDMI for both video and audio output to the TV.  After all, it is HDMI, high-definition blah blah, so routing through a HDMI supported receiver thence to TV would be taking advantage of latest hi-fi/hi-res technology.  But you are both right; I have to plug in a pair of tiny computer speakers to the 3.5mm headphone output, take off the "Listen to...", set default to Realtek and the lag disappears.  But as in all things Microsoft these days, you pay and hope what you paid for works.  Hence, the lag is gone but the mic output is now much too low for karaoke.  I have tried maxing the level, maxing the mic boost and, according to Karafun the mic level is truly maxed out but coming from the computer speakers, the mic output is too soft compared to the karaoke music.  So you see the mic level shown on Karafun hovering around mid-level just for the background noise.  Sing into it and it stays maxed at red but you have to listen carefully to hear the mic output from the speakers, almost completely drowned out by the backing music.

I suppose for those using it for guitar input it would not be an issue, since there is no competition in sound with any background music as in karaoke.  But definitely not suitable for karaoke - the only reason I got these 2 units for.  All is not lost though.  At least we occasionally use one of it to surf the web.  Nice, slim, 64bit computer running latest Windows 7 hooked up to 50" plasma TV doing what my old Windows 95 used to do.  The things we have to live with these days.

Rats! I started skimming after x amount. I'll have to start experimenting with Windows 7 on some newer machines to see if I can duplicate this phenomenon.

So what are we dealing with as far as devices that worked fine in xp? A lack of functionality in the new driver model?

@Tricky2K, @Chris

I have reviewed this thread, and being a very old audio guy, and a developer of an MPEG codec, I understand the cause of the delay.  IMHO, Microsoft has mislabeled the pin "listen to this device" because it is easily misinterpreted as a "monitor" function, which it is not.

"Listen to this device" = "monitor this device".  In Audio Speak, they have the same meaning.  In Microsoft speak, they do not.  I suggest Microsoft should change their nomenclature to conform more to the technology they are attempting to support, in this case, Audio technology.

Monitor, in audio speak, is a realtime event.  When you are sitting at your mixing console in the studio, and you turn on the Studio Monitors, you are listening to the realtime events going on inside the studio. 

I might suggest the name for this pin be changed to some other label to better reflect the function of that pin.  And maybe bring back UI support of the old XP pin.

Um, the other thing, you might mention to the developers that there is no reason for the microphone recorder device to be synchronized.

Best regards