When I went to Device Manager (press START, then put “device manager” in the search box to bring it up), and went down to the sound area, right clicked to open it, I discovered that 2 of 3 sound devices had disappeared! There seemed to be no way to resurrect them.
If you cannot get an installation you are used to using, it may cost you money as well as time and frustration….) But when the computer went to sleep at night, after a restore back as far as possible, in the morning, after spending an entire day on the problem, the little sound icon had a red x on it and again was not working, although it had worked with the restored version of Windows until I closed the computer. The only thing that worked in the short run was to reset my computer back several days as a “restore to an earlier date” fix in the Recovery (START then put “recovery” in the search box, and then pick the “Restore to an earlier date” BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO WIPE YOUR COMPUTER CLEAN with “Recovery” here – which will reinstate a factory version of Windows WITHOUT all your software, updates, and your files! which is a more extreme option that can take days to get working properly and if you don’t have copies of your software, a backup of your files, etc. I tried numerous approaches to fixing this error – no audio component available after a Windows Update.
