Fix for Error “The Audio Service is not running” in Windows

The speaker icon in the Taskbar’s notification area may appear with a red cross. When you hover the mouse pointer, it may say, “The Audio Service is not running.”

windows audio service not started

Launching the Volume Mixer by running Sndvol.exe would show the following error:

No audio device is installed

windows audio service not started

Error “The Audio Service is not running” in Windows

To restore the audio playback functionality on your Windows 10 computer, start the Windows Audio service:

  1. Click Start, type services.msc in the Start Search box.
  2. Scroll down the list of services, right-click Windows Audio, and select Start.
  3. Select Properties for Windows Audio and set its Startup Type to Automatic.
  4. In the Log On tab, make sure that “Log on as:” is set to “Local Service”.

In some cases, the Windows Audio service may not start, and you get one of the following errors:

Windows could not start the Windows Audio service on Local Computer.

Error 1075: The dependency service does not exist or has been marked for deletion.

(or)

Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start

To resolve the issue, ensure that the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service is started and set to Automatic start.



Note that on pre-Windows 10 systems, the Windows Audio service depends on the following services to start:

  • Plug and Play
  • Multimedia Class Scheduler
  • Windows Audio Endpoint Builder

Windows Audio Endpoint Builder Service is missing?

It appears that the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service goes missing in the Services MMC (services.msc) on some systems for unknown reasons. The user may have inadvertently deleted the service. As a result, the Windows Audio service wouldn’t start.

windows audio service not started

To resolve the issue, reinstate the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service on Windows 10 using the following registry fix:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Restores the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service on Windows 10

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AudioEndpointBuilder]
"Description"="@%SystemRoot%\\System32\\AudioEndpointBuilder.dll,-205"
"DisplayName"="@%SystemRoot%\\system32\\AudioEndpointBuilder.dll,-204"
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"FailureActions"=hex:80,51,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,14,00,00,\
00,01,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,01,00,00,00,c0,d4,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"Group"="AudioGroup"
"ImagePath"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
74,00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,\
00,76,00,63,00,68,00,6f,00,73,00,74,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2d,00,\
6b,00,20,00,4c,00,6f,00,63,00,61,00,6c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,\
00,4e,00,65,00,74,00,77,00,6f,00,72,00,6b,00,52,00,65,00,73,00,74,00,72,00,\
69,00,63,00,74,00,65,00,64,00,20,00,2d,00,70,00,00,00
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"RequiredPrivileges"=hex(7):53,00,65,00,43,00,68,00,61,00,6e,00,67,00,65,00,4e,\
00,6f,00,74,00,69,00,66,00,79,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,\
67,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
"ServiceSidType"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000002
"Type"=dword:00000020

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AudioEndpointBuilder\Parameters]
"ServiceDll"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,\
00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,\
41,00,75,00,64,00,69,00,6f,00,45,00,6e,00,64,00,70,00,6f,00,69,00,6e,00,74,\
00,42,00,75,00,69,00,6c,00,64,00,65,00,72,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
"ServiceDllUnloadOnStop"=dword:00000001
  1. Copy the above contents to Notepad.
  2. Save the file with .reg extension — e.g., audioendpoint_service.reg
  3. Double-click the registry file to apply the settings to the registry. Click Yes when prompted for confirmation.
  4. Open the C:\Windows\System32 folder and verify if the file AudioEndpointBuilder.dll exists. If it doesn’t, you may need to run DISM and SFC to restore the file. AudioEndpointBuilder.dll is the DLL for the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service.
  5. Restart Windows for the changes to take effect.

The audio functionality should have been restored now!


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

32 thoughts on “Fix for Error “The Audio Service is not running” in Windows”

  1. This is great – I had the same problem and it was fixed as soon as I found this page and followed your instructions.

    Thank you so much for making my day 🙂

    Reply
  2. You are a BEAUTIFUL PERSON. Awesome advise with the Services option and setting to Automatic as per your suggestions 🙂 🙂
    You have made my month!
    Cheers
    Stuart Fletcher – Christchurch New Zealand.

    Reply
  3. For people that can’t get multimedia class scheduler to start, double click multimedia class scheduler in the services list, click the log on tab, click undocked profile, click enable, then apply and start. =) You can then proceed with the rest above.

    Reply
  4. after days and days trying to get the audio to work error 1068, I followed your instructions to start services and lo and behold it works, you are the man 🙂

    Reply
  5. Finally.

    Sound.

    For those getting the error, it happens if you turn off devices that start up on computer boot, and one of these being an audio manager (like VIA). At least that was the case for me. Reinstating VIA didn’t restart the processes and services, thus, no sound.

    This fixed it. Thanks alot, random tech warrior.

    Reply
  6. thank you so much! many other threads suggest you reset bios or even format your computer. i knew there was a simpler way! 🙂 thanks a bunch again!

    Reply
  7. i did all that and i even re-install the driver every thing there is and still so audio . it shows that the volume is 0 but when i click to access the volume controller it does not come up and when i right click and go in volume mixer it says no audio device installed. i dont know what else to do and also the audio service is set to automatic a is started and still no audio

    Reply
  8. i have the same problem and i did that all
    an error message 1079
    the account specified for this service is different fro the account speciefied for other services running in the same process

    Reply
  9. When i reached properties for windows audio i chose to also restart the icon below windows audio called ‘windows audio endpoint builder’. this fixed my issue! thanks guys

    Windows 8 – HP laptop – 64 bit processor

    Reply
  10. Me too ..
    I have the same problem and I did that all
    but when I start the Windows Audio I get different message which:

    an error message 1079
    the account specified for this service is different fro the account speciefied for other services running in the same process

    how can I solve this please ..

    thank you

    Reply
  11. window could not start the windows audio Endpoint builder service on local computer
    error is still comming and audio services is not starting pls help

    Reply
  12. for me Windows audio endpoint builder and the multimedia one do not exist. I changed the plug and play but that did not help. My sound still just shows a red X next to the speaker symbol.

    Reply

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