KB5003173 Killed my audio

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.

I also explained in my first post how to immediately block the problem update after System Restore. I have suggested this thousands of times before in Windows 10 and no one has had problems with it; if so then it could again go to account or install corruption. What was the result of Step 17 in the performance checklist I gave you to test a new Local Admin account?

If the problem is not the account then compare your install to the one in this gold standard Clean Install in this link which compiles the best possible Install of Windows which will stay that way as long as you stick with the tools and methods given, has zero reported problems, and is better than any amount of money could buy: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...

The reason I suggest this is that no one who has adopted the install in the above link has ever come back to report further problems I've seen, including another version failure. This is because everything in Windows 10 is dependent upon the quality of the install, especially Version Updates which will choke on lesser quality installs, and there is no possibility of problems if you stick ONLY with the steps, tools and methods in that tutorial.

It is also one of life's great learning experiences that will permanently make you the master of your PC because you will learn everything that works best and how to keep it that way.

Greg, 

Yeah I get it, I have done thousands of clean windows installs.  Windows Update has **** me tens of thousands of times.  The behavior that system restore showed was absolutely irresponsible, as I was forced into updating again afterward without ever having explorer load.

What I can't afford to do right now is the clean install as the corresponding downtime is unmanageable.  Its also the nuclear option which says, we don't know what is wrong, so let's just start over.  While I advocate this nuclear option many times over for many circumstances where the time to troubleshoot far outweighs the time investment of the clean install and re-setup,  this in no way helps anyone determine what in Windows ****uring these updates.  I am trying to make progress and advance troubleshooting knowledge, if not a potential bug fix to prevent this from happening in the future.

As it turns out, somehow these updates removed the local and network service accounts out of the admin groups.

I ran the following commands to add them back:

net localgroup Administrators /add localservice

net localgroup Administrators /add networkservice

I then went and restarted the "Windows Audio" service in services.msc

Bam, both my sound cards instantly came online.

All my audio is back online!

I just saw your post edit above which I dont' get notifications for.   I am very glad to hear that command worked.  

As to your questions about System Restore and Windows Updates - which both also go to the quality of the underlying install which is what matters most in WIndows 10 - merely doing a reinstall is not enough, assurance that none of these problems happen again has only been achieved by those millions who have done the gold standard Clean Install Windows 10 because they learn everything that works best and how to maintain it.

System Restore can malfunction but is becoming more resilient and also reacts directly to the quality of the install. It remains the first line of defense.   One thing that can fix it if it fails in Windows or Boot Mode is to run a Disk Check which may repair file system errors that are blocking it's success:  Disk Check

How to Run CHKDSK in Windows 10 from CMD or Before Boot

Let me know if there's anything else.
Also when ready please mark the post which helped most as the Answer (or Resolved), to help others.   A rating is also appreciated.