It would probably be too much to ask if Windows – regardless of whether it was version 10 or 11 – did exactly what you set it to do. For almost three years, Microsoft’s sound management got on my nerves, because since the beginning of the corona pandemic and the associated home office, Windows 10 has repeatedly reduced the volume of the microphone on its own.
This was always noticed when friends in the evening voice chat or colleagues in the preparation for the heise show remarked that one was so unusually quiet. Actually, that shouldn’t be possible at all: all mechanisms for automatic volume control are (theoretically) switched off, the rotary control on the audio interface (including the integrated 48-volt amplifier for the Rode microphone) has always been set to about three-fifths.
Mark Mantel has been an editor at heise online and c’t since 2019. He mainly takes care of online reporting about PC hardware.
Useless SEO help
Countless repetitive “guides” that can be found on the first five Google pages write that you should uncheck “Applications have sole control of the device” in the sound control panel under the advanced microphone settings. If necessary, Skype and Steam could also intervene. Followed all instructions… still no improvement.
On January 2nd, 2023, I finally decided to finally track down the problem. After all, New Year’s resolutions are a good tradition and I don’t have anything better to do anyway. It quickly became clear that Microsoft Teams was the disruptive factor. We use the tool parallel to self-hosted video conferences.
Solution in two attempts
In the depths of a forum post I finally found salvation – temporarily, but more on that later. The “Applications have sole control of the device” setting only works if you uncheck all microphones that connect to the PC, including any that are disabled. The latter point is relevant if, for example, you connect Bluetooth headsets to the PC but do not use their microphones. Otherwise, Windows 10 and Windows 11 apparently think they have to change the volume system-wide and across devices.
An important setting in Windows that may not work on one device alone: ”Applications have sole control of the device”
A setback came weeks later after reinstalling Windows 10 after the upgrade to Windows 11 for testing purposes didn’t work the way I wanted.
Deactivated the above option again for all microphones… nevertheless, Windows adjusted the microphone volume. So I went to Google again and found an accidental finding: The Xbox Game Bar integrated into the operating system apparently has rights to tinker with the sound. That made sense because I had turned them off on the previous install, but not after the reinstall.
Now the Xbox Game Bar has been turned off for two weeks, not a single connected microphone grants applications sole control over the device and for the past two weeks my microphone volume has lingered at 100 percent. A dream.
So one may be allowed to ask how badly you can solve the sound control? Auto volume control is probably a good thing for the general public, but *please* make it optional. Hide the option in the fifth sub-menu so you don’t find it by mistake. It works with Skype too. But for heaven’s sake, don’t let any software change the sound settings system-wide.
(mma)
