Any solution to "The Audio Service is not running"?

Go to:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > View Local Services

This is the "Services" window, it lists all the system services. Look for "Windows Audio" NOT "Windows Audio Endpoint Builder"

[just click on any service, then press the letter "W" on your keyboard, it will take you to the services starting with the "w" letter]

Right click on the "Windows Audio" service and choose "Properties"

You will see 4 tabs, click on the last one, labeled "Dependencies"

In that tab, you will see the "This service depends on the following system components" box, it displays 3 services

Beside each service there is a "+" icon, click on it to expand the list. The 2nd service will have 2 child services, the 3rd service will have 1 child service.

Now make sure that all the 6 services (3 main, 3 child) have the "Started" status in the "Services" window you opened earlier

Most propably you will find one of those services are not running, just start all of them, then try to start the "Window Audio" service from the "General" tab.

That's it

Hi ctmt,

a. Do your computer’s symptoms match with that as described in the KB article 2011656?

If yes, you may try adjusting the volume by changing the volume levels in the volume slider and check if the red ‘X’ disappears.

Muting the volume and un-muting the volume has also helped some users to get rid of the red ‘X’ icon in the tray icon.

As mentioned in the KB article:

In most cases, this behavior is temporary and the red 'X' will disappear when:

• Windows 7 has finished booting to the desktop and hard drive activity has decreased.
• The first time the user clicks on the speaker icon to change the audio playback volume level.

This behavior is cosmetic in nature and does not affect the performance of Windows.

You need not worry and wait for an update from Microsoft.

Hope this helps!

Gokul - Microsoft Support

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