KB5003173 Killed my audio

Anonymous
2021-05-16T22:22:22+00:00

"No Audio Output Devices Installed"

This morning when I logged onto my pc, there was a red X over my speaker icon next to the clock in the tray.

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UPDATE 5/18/2021: SOLUTION WAS THE FOLLOWING:

I figured it out.  

I opened CMD prompt as Admin and ran the following commands.

net localgroup Administrators /add localservice

net localgroup Administrators /add networkservice

I then restarted the Windows Audio service in services.msc

And what do you know, my audio is back!

It appears windows Update removed the service accounts from the Administrators groups and never put them back.

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This must have happened sometime on 5/15 as on 5/14 there was no issue.

I checked my Sound control panel and found that there are no Output/Playback or Input/Recording devices anymore...

I then checked my audio drivers and no issues at all...

I then ran the Sound troubleshooter, and it didn't do anything to help.

I uninstalled all my audio drivers and reinstalled them, but no change.  Rather strangely, I tried installing my original version RealTek Audio driver... It would uninstall my current drivers, and then install the new ones, then prompt for restart.  After restart, it opened the installer again and asked to do the same uninstall/install/reboot.  No matter how many times I did this, the Driver MSI package kept opening on boot.  Perhaps windows was preventing it from installing?

I checked my BIOS to see if audio was disabled there, but it was enabled.

I checked Windows Update, and saw that an update KB5003173 failed and wanted me to retry.  It would not work.  I did a sfc /scannow and DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth.  I checked my Aorus drivers and saw there was an AMD chipset update, so I installed it.  After reboot, the KB5003173 successfully installed.

Audio still broken at this point...

I tried to uninstall KB5003173 but it didn't work and I got this...

I then cruised this MS Answers site and found tons of other people with the same issue, but none of the proposed solutions seemed to work for them or I.  One of them even recommended doing an In-place Windows 10 Upgrade / Install.  I did this and guess what? It's still broken.

I checked my update history, and these are the only things that installed or tried to install on 5/15/21:

This originally had a date of 5/15, but I got to it work today on 5/16.

The only other things were these....

Windows Defender is my only security software.

My Hardware:

Why does this say no sound card found???????

I have also since flashed my Bios to F33J which is the newest version released just 2 weeks ago.  Audio still broken.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-05-18T17:47:19+00:00

    Click on the speaker on the taskbar, if at the end of the title there is an ^ click on it and pick a different title.

    As windows does not recognize either sound card, that is not an option.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-05-18T17:46:41+00:00

    Greg,

    If by system restore you mean using the system restore point windows update created, then it was useless, as after using the restore point, windows automatically reinstalled the problematic patches.

    I have created a new account and the problem exists for it as well.

    Again, the only thing left which I can’t afford to do is format completely and start fresh.

    Those steps are obvious to anyone who has been in IT for 20 years as I have.  Now yes, those steps theoretically cover any problem as they technically mention to do a complete format/reinstall, but I have no assurances that will work.  DISM/SFC show there are no issues with my windows system files, but clearly there is something introduced in those patches that prevent windows from recognizing either one of my sound cards.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-05-18T17:23:10+00:00

    Philip, that's the reason I emphasized System Restore since the Updates can't be uninstalled. They most certainly can be System Restored, anything can be, so something else must have been wrong with System Restore. That can point to Account Corruption.

    The steps I gave cover everything possible to get the Sound working, so work through them again with the new card. They are not some simple checklist of obvious steps, they compile absolutely everything.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-05-18T17:20:30+00:00

    Click on the speaker on the taskbar, if at the end of the title there is an ^ click on it and pick a different title.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-05-18T16:11:34+00:00

    As it turns out, I have discovered Windows cannot use any audio driver.  

    I went out and got a Sound Blaster Card, driver installed no errors, but still no audio in windows. 

    This isn't unique now to Realtek, but also now Creative. 

    What ever interconnect exists between audio drivers and the Windows Audio service is hosed.  How can I delete this and restore anew?

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