audio not working, win 10 host, win 10 guest

[shmu26]

Yesterday, I converted my physical machine to virtual, using the Converter Standalone.

It got stuck at 98%, but it created the VM okay, it just needed the boot to be fixed.

Now everything seems to work except for audio.

I have realtek installed on host.

In the host drivers, I see intel display audio and realtek high definition audio.

In guest drivers, the whole category of sound, video and game controllers is missing.

As mentioned, both host and guest are win 10.

And yes, I have latest version of VMware tools installed on guest.

Workstation 14.

[shmu26]

Hmm, I updated to Workstation 14.1, I also updated VMware tools in guest, but still no sound in win10 guest.

The guest simply does not detect any sound device.

Anything to do about this?

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

Have you tried removing and adding the sound controller again?

Check the vmx configuration file whether the following lines are present:

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.filename = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

If the sound.virtualDev is not available, it will use the VMware VMaudio device driver that comes from VMware Tools. You might then see an "Unknown device" or "Other Devices" in Device Manager. You can update the driver manually. Re-install VMware Tools but run from command line setup64 /a and it will prompt for a folder to extract. You then specify the folder where you extracted the VMware Tools to in the manual driver update of the "unknown device".

The easiest would be to specify the "hdaudio" and it should then use the Microsoft High Definition Audio that comes standard with Windows 7/8/10.

[shmu26]

Yeah, I was missing the line: sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

That fixed it. Thanks!

[shmu26]

By the way, the help page needs to be updated.

VMware Knowledge Base

It says to delete that line, which is wrong.

[shmu26]

I am using the default Windows sound driver, but the one I prefer, the Realtek audio driver, does not show in the list of drivers in the guest. Even in the hidden devices.

I tried downloading the Realtek driver and installing it in guest, but it still doesn't show up.

Is there a line I can add to the config file, so the guest will recognize the host's "Realtek High Definition Audio"?

Or some other idea?

[bluefirestorm]

The host sound device won't show up in the VM as PCIe device passthrough is not yet supported in Workstation Pro.

For Windows 7/8/10 VMs, the virtual sound device will either be Microsoft High Definition Audio (sound.virtualdev = "hdaudio") or the VMware VMaudio (i.e. sound.virtualdev line not present). As to which sound device it uses on the host, the closest thing would be the preferred device drop down list box in the VM configuration.

Alternatively, there are USB sound controllers, so in theory these can be passed through to the VM just like USB thumb drive and other USB devices are passed to the VM. And thus in such scenario, the USB sound device would be the sound controller inside the VM. I haven't tried this option myself but I would think you would have to disable the sound in the VM configuration so that it won't conflict with the USB sound device passthrough.

As for the KB, I just hope that some VMware employee sees it and updates it. Note that I am not a VMware employee so there is nothing more than I can do than what you have already done.

But having said that, there is at least one scenario where removing sound.virtualdev = "hdaudio" actually helps. This scenario is when the host is Linux and the guest VM is Windows 7; if the hdaudio is used, the sound in the Windows VM cracks intermittently.

[BillyBob66]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

This is what fixed it for me as well

sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

Thank you!

[plao68]

Thanks a lot man, issue fixed! All the best 🙂

[tunetown]

Add one more happy camper to the solution using 

sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

My challenge: 

Host = Win10 LTSC converted w/ vCenter Standalone Converter 6.2, 

guest running in VMWare Workstation 16

but set for compatibility w/ Workstation 11-12.   Thanks a ton!