Major sound problems any advice?

[spud]

Have a major problem with the computer.  Got M$ updates today and of course the computer had to be restarted to finish the job.  Did that and then tried FSX to find a dead sound problem.  Loaded FSX with the NorCal Maule and had a nice screeching sound that would not go away even with other planes selected.  There is no sound from the speakers or the headphones now.  Can't hear a thing except the screech in FSX.
I have not tried doing a Restore point yet but I do not think that will negate M$ updates which appears to be the problem.  Any ideas of what to try?
TS does not work, telling the computer to use only default sound devices does not work. Yelling, kicking and screaming or kicking the cpu does not work 
Damn I hate these things.
 

[ualani]

Spud,
Most MS (all?) updates can be rolled back. (I never use the MS restore utility because it's worthless and doesn't properly work most of the time, at least in my experience. I create HD images and restore from them when needed.)

In Win7 go to control panel
Windows update
View update history
Click on "Installed updates"
In the table, look for the updates that were installed most recently
Uninstall one by one until the culprit is identified

If you're still running XP then do this:
Control Panel
Add or Remove Programs
Click to enable the “Show Updates” check box, located at the top of the window. This option displays all security patches currently installed on your system.
Select the update you wish to remove, and click the “Remove” button next to the item in question. If prompted for confirmation or further actions, follow the instructions presented on the screen to complete the removal procedure

[Doug]

Steve is right, but did you (perhaps) save a copy of FSX.CFG?  If you did, while "out" of FSX, delete the one that is there and put in the backup.  For me, that's my "restore point" and it has solved all of my problems so far.  When I put in the DX-10 changes, once I knew they worked, I archived a copy of that with the date on it. Then I put in Instant Scenery 3 ... after I knew it worked, I copied the fsg.cfg and archived that one with the date.  Yesterday, I was messing around trying to come up with indicator lights for the beaver. Somehow, the landing gear got stuck "down".  I changed airplanes, went in and out of FSX, same problem. I went to my latest archived fsx.cfg, deleted what was there and put in the archived one ... worked perfectly.

[ualani]

Doug,
I can't imagine that an MS update messed with his fsx.cfg. Something trashed his sound system. I'll bet it has something to do with DX.


Spud, is the sound messed up when watching a video or playing an MP3 or wav sound file? Do you know what updates you installed?

Believe it or not, an update that was part of the prep for IE 10 trashed my Windows LIve Mail! It wouldn't load and it took me hours to figure out what trashed it. (I did a Java update at the same time and I thought that it had caused the problem.) The culprit was KB2670838. It had something to do with DX11 and it messed up alot of other people's computers as well. Do a Google search for that one and see what I mean. I have auto updates turned off and do a quick scan of the stuff the updates are supposed to addressed before installing them and that one looked innocent. NOT!

Steve

[spud]

Howdy Gents,
well Windows has managed to do it again!  I went to M$ database help and followed all the little try this and try that BS with no results and no sound.  One item caught my eye about playing Windows sounds which didn't work either but after that fiasco I decided to just reboot the system.  Of course while playing about in the 'mud' I had been gradually increasing the volume control.  So on shut down no sound at all so I thought well still not working.  Well when I restarted I think I took about 2 years off my life expectancy  when the start up ditty went OFF right in my ear.  Don't have a clue why it is working but KISS it ain't broke no mo' I ain't gonna fix it!
Now for the sage advice offered.  I do still run XP and know about the updates in the add/remove programs section of Control Panel but looking at that the newest date there is 7/15/13 which was 14 days ago.  And even if there were a date for today there probably be several so I still wouldn't know what to remove.
the FSX.cfg would not be the problem I'm almost certain of that but computers are strange and wonderous animals so you can never tell.
Actually one day I'll probably pull out my old M9 that they issued me in place of the M1911 side arm many years ago and put the CPU out of its misery! 
Any way it works again sorry to bother everybody.