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I have Virtual Audio Cable successfully installed on my Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 x64 virtual machine. It seem like driver works (new audio device in Device Manager group and VAC control panel works perfectly), but unfortunately if you go to Control Panel -> Hardware -> Sound there is no audio devices (neither playback or recording). And so my software doesn't see any audio devices.

It is virtual machine with no physical sound card. I connect to it using Remote Desktop.

Is this known issue? Is it possible to get VAC working on such machine?

Pavel Shchegolevatykh
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3 Answers3

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Audio is special in a lot of ways, and audio drivers run in the context of a "session" in Windows, so each remote desktop user gets their own audio. Even on a physical machine, when you connect via remote desktop, you see different audio devices in device manager from the ones you see sitting a local keyboard.

The short answer to your question is that a VMware virtual audio device will only be visible in the "console" session, not in secondary remote desktop sessions. You can remote audio through your remote desktop, with our without a VMware virtual audio device.

Jake Oshins
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  • I have tried to run in the "console" session by using MSTSC /admin. But I have the same results. No audio devices there. – Pavel Shchegolevatykh Aug 09 '12 at 08:37
  • The console session is only available through MSTSC /admin for Windows Vista and earlier systems. Windows 7 (and Server 2008 R2) have no such console-over-MSTSC notion. If you want the console, you're going to have to use VMware redirection tools, whatever you would have used to see the boot manager and boot process. – Jake Oshins Aug 09 '12 at 21:40
  • What if I install Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003 on my machine? Is it solve this problem? – Pavel Shchegolevatykh Aug 10 '12 at 11:29
  • It's not clear what problem you think you're solving. MSTSC will remote audio, with any of those operating systems. Instead of using that, you're trying to use VMware mechanisms for remoting audio. That's fine, but for me to answer your question, you have to tell me why you want to use VMware means rather than the built-in Windows one. Then I'll know what your goals are. VMware might offer sound during the boot process, or some level of 5.1 Dolby or something that MSTSC doesn't. Is that why you're trying to use it? – Jake Oshins Aug 11 '12 at 02:13
  • For example I need to make call in Skype for some phone number and play custom sound (*.wav file) in this machine. But as I said it is virtual machine and it doesn't have any sound devices. In this case Virtual Audio Cable helps. It installs virtual sound devices (speaker connected with mic) that allows to transfer all sounds to mic. This works perfectly on physical machine (even with disabled sound card in Device Manager). I want to get it work on my virtual machine. – Pavel Shchegolevatykh Aug 22 '12 at 09:33
  • Yes. I understand your scenario. I asked why you're not using the audio part of MSTSC. (You can enable it by clicking "show more options" and then looking at the "Local Resources" tab.) You responded by saying you want audio. That's already clear. – Jake Oshins Aug 22 '12 at 17:26
  • I don't want to log in to perform this actions manually. It should work automatically without open user session. For instance using Task Scheduler every X minutes. – Pavel Shchegolevatykh Aug 23 '12 at 08:34
  • What should work automatically? Playing audio? I simply don't understand what you're asking for. What situation involves playing audio without logging into the machine? – Jake Oshins Aug 24 '12 at 17:24
  • For example caller app that call to configurable list of phone numbers and playback sound (voice message, *.wav file from file system) after they answer the call. – Pavel Shchegolevatykh Aug 27 '12 at 14:22
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I have a windows server 2012 R2 X64 with Virtual Audio Cable (v 4.13) and use it by RDP fine. In the settings RDP sessions to choose Global Resourses => Remote computer Sound => Leave at remote computer

screenshot.


For advanced usage of rdp sound features read this:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759165.aspx

kasperd
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sashok-batman
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Virtual Audio Cable works fine with 2008 R2 , but it needs to be installed on a session basis, it will not replicate over RDP, you need to connect with Team Viewer or something similar to access the audio streams.

Malcolm
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