Distorted audio playback with VM 15.5

[DiMeY]

Guest system Win XP ran for a long time with VM 4.0 under Win 7. After the conversion from Win 7 to Win 10, the guest system continued to run without problems.

Now I want to use the guest system Win XP on another Win 10 host. VM 4.0 can not be installed there. That's why I downloaded and installed VM 15.5. However, the guest system Win XP only works with heavily distorted sound reproduction.

[jpepe3691]

I can't take credit for the SOLUTION to the audio distortion problem in 15.5 and Windows 10 host. But, here is what someone else suggested, and it worked like a charm:

Open Windows Media Play, set it to Now Playing, and then minimize it. That's IT! If you don't believe me try playing some system sounds, like Windows log on or Windows Exit, etc.

I have no idea why this works but it DOES.

For your information, I do NOT have the problem on my Asus Z97-pro Tower, running VM 15.5 and Win 10 as the host.

I only have the problem on my Lenovo P50 laptop with the same versions. Go figure!

Note: I just discovered the fix is not a permanent one. If the distorted audio drives you as crazy as me, you'll have to start Windows Media Player in your virtual machine and set it to now playing and then minimize Each and Every Time you fire your XP or 7 virtual machine up!

Maybe someone can figure out a permanent fix??

Hope this helps!

[CountDuckula · Accepted solution]

I had the same/similar issue with my XP SP3 VM under VMware Player 15.5.2 build-15785246 (and older versions) running under win10 (1903 currently, also older versions) host.

The login sound was clear but shortly after audio became distorted, and bizarrely opening WMP would fix the issue just as you describe.

Setting LCS - VMAudioFixTray  to run at startup as the link describes seems to have resolved the issue, audio is still clear after rebooting.

It requires dotnet 3.5 (Download Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service pack 1 (Full Package) from Official Microsoft Download...)

This failed to install for me, giving a 'DepCheck indicates RGB Rast is not installed.' error in the log.
Installing dotnet 4.0 first (Download Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer) from Official Microsoft Download Center) resolved that problem and let dotnet 3.5 install.

[DiMeY]

Thanks alot. That was exactly the solution.

[AlDaja]

Simple sound distortion solution I use for XP on VM 15.5:

Once you have booted and XP has loaded.  Open the following: Start/My Music/Sample Music.  Then click on one of the two available sample songs.  Pause the song and minimize the Windows Media Player and leave it running while you are using XP, it won't interfere with anything you are doing.  You will need to do this each time you load XP, but it will correct the annoy distortion issue.

[Prophet42]

Thank you!!!!  The VMAudioFixTray was exactly what I was looking for.  It fixed the audio distortion on my XP guest perfectly.