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[bblue]

Hi-

I've been using Media Center in all late Windows 10 versions (1800 & 1900 series) for a very long time, but they were always upgrades of MC on upgrades of W10.  The WDM driver was usually misnamed, but that has been discussed before and I've been able to work around it.  It's been working fine on several machines, even those that correctly updated to Windows 10 2004.

But I've got one machine that is my main workstation that would simply refuse to update to 2004 no matter what I tried or who I sought help from (including Microsoft).  After weeks of trial and errors, I decided to just upgrade the whole machine to new hardware and reinstall 2004 from scratch.  That was tedious to say the least, but now everything is working.

Except when I got to installing Media Center (first 26.0.30, then 26.0.107, and now 27.0.20).  None of them installed a WDM driver so MC can act as a default sound driver for Windows.  Nothing shows up in Device Manager (view=Hidden), or shows up in Sound drivers in those available in Windows.

I tried installing the drivers manually from /Program Files/J River/Media Center 27/Drivers/WDM/Win/10/64 manually, and though everything looks ok, they still don't show up anywhere as usual.  I've also tried re-installing MC by running as administrator, no luck there either. 

Otherwise the version 26's and 27's I've used on this machine work fine except for WDM.  Any suggestions what to do?  It's probably a 2004 permissions issue -- so many other things were, but this has defeated me.

Thanks for any assist.

--Bill

[David Sydney]

Not sure we are on the same page with "MC acting as default Sound Driver for windows" but sound drivers are in Settings, Audio on the first line there is a drop down. I suggest you use the WASAPI drivers which should be listed (I have Win10 64 2004 also). I don't think WDM has ever been listed in there from my recollection. The "Direct Sound" drivers may be same as WDM - but Direct is a windows name - does not mean the sound path is direct. After experimenting recently - WASAPI is a superior driver to use. I have 2 zones setup to use 2 these 2 different drivers depending on the circumstances.

If you are talking about file associations so that MC acts as the default driver when you open a file - then that is a different thing?

[Hendrik]

Go into the MC settings, under General -> Features make sure WDM Driver is enabled, and even if it is already, turn it off, apply settings, turn it back on again, to prompt MC to reinstall the driver.

[David Sydney]

What is the advantage of the WDM driver over WASAPI drivers anyway?

[JimH]

The WDM Driver lets MC act like any other audio driver so that you can play to it from any other program.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WDM_Driver

[bblue]

Thanks for the replies.  But nothing was suggested than I haven't already tried.  In General -> Features the WDM option is enabled, and I have toggled it off, saved, rebooted, toggled it on, save and rebooted -- no difference.  On my other machines the Media Center WDM driver shows up in Windows Device Manager, as well as Windows sound devices.  That's where I usually enable it to receive all default audio from Windows.  I use Wasapi drivers for the output devices in Media Center, and that all works fine.  The Media Center WDM device just doesn't show up anywhere in Windows on this fresh ground-up W10 2004 (build 19041) with a fresh install of Media Center.

I got nowhere trying to manually install the drivers from the J River/Media Center/Drivers directory.  The only thing odd there, that may or may not be significant is in JRiverWDMDriver.inf there are several references to "JRiver Media Center 25" as the Device Name and the Installation Diskname.  What might be the proper procedure to install that driver?  I just right-clicked on the .inf file and selected Install from the pop up menu.  No errors.

--Bill

[bblue]

Just for the heck of it, I installed MC 27.0.21 over my 27.0.20, and Voila!  The WDM driver is now visible like before.

Sidenote, the JRiverWDMDriver.inf file is different and has all references to Media Center 25 removed.  I guess someone else noticed too!  Thanks to whoever it was.

--Bill