Elitebook 745 G6 Realtek Audio Driver Issue

[Gertie_Fremont]

We run an Intune-based 1:1 laptop program at a technical school. A large percentage of our deployed devices are affected by an audio driver issue where using the volume up/down keys will mute all audio playback. The only fix was restarting the application or reloading the video/audio stream and using the application's audio controls.

I've narrowed it down to the Realtek Audio driver 6.0.9247.1 published on 10/5/21. This was automatically installing via Windows Updates and breaking the volume key functionality. I rolled back to the Audio driver from 8/3/21, version 6.0.9215.1 and that seems to be unaffected and all audio-related keys retain their functionality. 

Has anyone else experienced this? 

[drewster61008]

Having the exact same problem. Uninstalling and removing/deleting the driver, then reinstalling from HP fixes the issue temporarily until Windows update downloads the newer/broken update, which breaks the volume functionality as you mentioned. 

[Gertie_Fremont]

We restricted 3rd party updates via Intune, so those that uninstall the update don't run the risk of reinstallation. But, for standalone machines, you can run the Windows Show/Hide Update Tool: https://download.microsoft.com/download/f/2/2/f22d5fdb-59cd-4275-8c95-1be17bf70b21/wushowhide.diagca... to block the update from installing. 

This guide can help: How to hide buggy updates on Windows 10 • Pureinfotech

[Gertie_Fremont]

Bump. Does anyone else have feedback?

[drewster61008]

What I ended up having to do was
- Uninstall the driver (and check the box to delete the driver software). 

- Do any necessary reboots.
- Install the audio driver from HP's site. 
- Reboot again if necessary
- DO NOT RUN WINDOWS UPDATE (or it'll download the bad update again)
- Then do a gpedit.msc to prevent driver installations (See picture below) Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation > Device Installation Restrictions > Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs. 

-Then added the Hardware ID of the realtek audio device from device manager.

The user hasn't reported any audio issues since, but I have also purposely not run Windows update in case it does in fact download it again. So, not sure if this is a valid workaround OR it's just because Windows Update hasn't been run yet. 

Obviously, being a workaround, the audio device won't receive any updates until you undo this local policy, but hopefully a future update will fix this problem all together.