If you right-click on My Computer and go to manage, then click on device manager you will see a list of all your devices.

Is the Sound Video and Game Controllers expanded out? If so think back, what did you change lately? Did you run windows update and install an updated driver for the Sound Card? If so I would use the roll-back driver option on the driver tab. Could you give some more description of what you are running in your system. The easyest way to fix this is to install the drivers from the manufacture's web site.

I had the same problem today. I went into the options section and under plugins, in the output area, I saw the out_ds.dll file was there. You have the ability to change the properties of the specified dll. After looking thru the options, I found that it had changed my soundcard setting, from my soundcard to a generic name. I switched it back to my soundcard and got no problems, no more error, just thought I would pass the info along.

The advice about the .dll file that had to be configured worked 😁

But I now can't use the buttons on my keyboard anymore. For example the VOLUME +/-, and the MUTE button. I really used them a lot so I'd really like them to work again. I also still don't have any music when playing games.

I am actually having the same problem. My issue, though, is there is some sort of problem with my operating system (Windows XP Pro). Check these things:

1. Control Panel, and then Sound and Audio. Do you have a default device setup?
2. Right-click on My Computer, Properties, Manage. Do you have a multimedia driver configured and installed, with no problems (Problems being exclamation points)?

See, my sound card driver is new and appropriate for the hardware. I'm not having any IR problems, and the device is set up correctly, but it's like Windows doesn't see it. I cannot even select it as my default audio output (in the control panel). Funny thing is, though, I was able to select this device with Winamp (instead of the default), and my Winamp is outputting sound now (it sounds like a couple of people had similar setups). Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?

Try this:

1. Right-click on My Computer
2. Manage
3. Device Manager
4. Go down to where the exclamation point is
5. Right-click to Disable, then Enable it.

Worked for me.

Mike, that way is TOTALLY wrong. What would it fix, I mean, all you did was disable it, then enable it. The problem would still remain, for one, I tried it, because I have this same problem, and it didnt work.

EDIT : Heres a lovely tip (Or 3 tips in one) from the support center installed on XP Pro. NOTE : Have your installation disc or floppy ON HAND, if you have an nVidia card. (Otherwise, you will recive "Cannot Install This Hardware Problem, blah blah blah, Driver is not intended for this platform, which is BS anyways.)

"Uninstall and then reinstall your device.
To resolve the problem that is causing Device Manager to show an error code for your device, try uninstalling and then reinstalling the device.

To uninstall your device

Open Device Manager.
If the category for your device is not expanded, double-click the category.
Under the category for your device, right-click the device that you want to uninstall, and then click Uninstall.
In the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, click OK.
Note

To open Device Manager, click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Hardware tab, and then click Device Manager.
Once you have removed your device, use the Add Hardware Wizard to reinstall it.

To reinstall your device

Close any open programs.
Start the Add Hardware Wizard.
Click Next, and wait for Windows to search for Plug and Play devices. Most new devices are Plug and Play, so you rarely need to go beyond this step.
If no Plug and Play devices are found, a list of devices appears. Click Add a new hardware device, and then click Next.
Click Install the hardware that I manually select from a list, and then click Next.
In the Common hardware types list, click the appropriate device category, and then click Next.
In the Manufacturers list, click the manufacturer of your device; in the Models list, click the model name.

Or, click Have Disk if you have an updated or manufacturer-supplied driver to install for your device.
Click Next, and then follow the wizard's instructions to complete the installation.
Note

To open the Add Hardware Wizard, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Printers and Other Hardware. Under See Also, click Add Hardware."

OR you could go to System Restore, and go back to yesterday, that is if you have System Restore enabled.

I'm also having the same problem as pfnagel.
Except the big problem with me is, I don't seem to have my installer CD. :s

SB came pre-installer with the computer, I'm not sure if we even have an install CD to be honest.

It's weird though, Winamp works when it feels like it, along with games and WMP.
Apparently SoundBlaster's working fine, it's 'Microsoft WINMM WDM Audio Compatibility Driver' that's carked it. Though SoundBlaster doesn't appear when I try and set it as default soundcard or whatnot.

Interesting though (if not a little worrying) that so many other people are having this problem!

This problem happened AFTER I updated the nVidia sound card from the microsoft website. Suggestion, BEFORE updating, make a system restore point, just in case. Also, its VERY RARE for a sound card needing an update, so I dont recommend updating it, UNLESS the home page of your sound card maker suggests it.

I have been having this same problem for about a week. I bought this laptop used, so no driver cds came with it. I guess I have the ESS Allegro sound card, which came with the computer. It appears that it is gone, not physicaly, but the computer wont find it. I recently installed a program that screwed everyting up. So, I now have the same problem as everyone else, but none of the things listed worked for me. I even downloaded the original driver. Nothing works. 😟 I have windows ME incase that helps.
Any suggestions will be greatey appritiated.

Thanks alot

Wow! I struggled with this error for hours! I finally found an easy way to fix it! I went through all the suggestions here, and nothing worked. In windows update it wasn't finding any updates. Finally, I found this link, updated the drivers, and it all worked!

Q: I keep getting error messages when trying to play any file...
A: Update soundcard drivers and DirectX.

Go to this website:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

woohoo, I hope it works for you too! 🤣

I used to get that message...
I think I just reinstalled anything that had to do with sound. Drivers, winamp... etc...

i just had the same problem....but none of my windows sounds work...everything works, but just has no sound....and i got the winamp DirectSound error message....

ive checked all the drivers and they all say they're working correctly....

oh yea, i have a dell dimension 4600....
can anyone find the DirectSound driver so i can reinstall it...will that fix my problem?.....

im in the process of making a Rockcrawling dvd for my business, and i've got a deadline...now i can't hear crap....

any advise...
thanks,
James

I have this problem in the last hour.

I am a DJ on a online Radio Station so i need my sounds working. ASAP.

My Winamp recently fecked up so i decided to re-install it. It asked me for that driver thing.

I put my playlist on WMP (over 1000 songs on this PC) and tried to play one. it then went through every track going red with an explanation mark.

NONE of my Windows sounds work.. and i have already un-installed Winamp.

Any Help will be so good. I need this working right away..

Cheers if anyone can help,

Dougle.

BTT.

Sorry but i need to have this sorted.

I would just like to say my problem has been fixed.. i don't know how but it is.

out_ds.dll , Sound Card Driver and Winamp installation are not problem.System restore to System restore point (was made minute ago) fix it.

Two days ago, I can open both windows media player and winamp to play at the same time(actually any music player combination). Yesterday I found "Bad DirectSound Driver ... " errro message. I can only close the software which is using the soundcard in order to use another music player. This is against my previous experience and I knew for sure there must be a solution to recover to previous stage. I search google and lead me here. What I did is exactly as you guys told me .

1. Open Winamp
2. Ctrl + P to bring up preference window
3. Look down to Plug-ins-->Output
4. There are three choices in my case.
   1)waveOut output v2.0.3 [out_wave.dll]
   2)Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in v2.0c (x86) [out_disk.dll]
   3)DirectSound output v2.2.12 [out_ds.dll]
5. before I make any change, it highlights the third choice.
   Then I click the first choice to highlight it, next click "Configure" .
6. A new window called "waveOut setting" pops out
7. in Device:drop down box , I switch to "Crystal SoundFusion(tm)" --->that's my sound card.
8. Done... Now I can open several media playing softwares to play musics at the same time.. BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN

My guessing: It's Winamp's new update cause that trouble. If you happens to come here, you find a solution. In my case, I knew that my soundcard has not any problem in terms of doing simultaneous jobs. It's the software which controls multi-jobs..

rebooting also works, i have the problem wuite frequently. i also replaced the dll with one i got off the net

i just had the same problem....but none of my windows sounds work...everything works, but just has no sound....and i got the winamp DirectSound error message....

ive checked all the drivers and they all say they're working correctly....

oh yea, i have a dell dimension 4600....
can anyone find the DirectSound driver so i can reinstall it...will that fix my problem?.....

im in the process of making a Rockcrawling dvd for my business, and i've got a deadline...now i can't hear crap....

any advise...
thanks,
James

I' m exactly in the same situation! I even made a rollback on the directx, from 9c to 8.1 and the result was the same... nothing! I don' t have any sound in the hardware management it' s everything is ok:

On the other hand, I can' t even select a device on the control panel or even test sound and music in the dxdiag! What can I do? Please Help! Thank you...

WARNING: this method of doing things should only be a last resort and make sure you back up all files that you think might get affected. Also this method is like taking out a tank to go after a flea.

First of all I would like to say that I have used this forum at least 2 times before for this issue and it has been a great help, but this time it was of no help, so here is how this all happened.

First after seeing that all these tricks failed I logged into the Administrator and check out the Device Manager to see it there was something wrong there. When I saw that there was nothing wrong there I shut down the PC and started it up to see if it would notice that there was no sound card, that failed.

So I did that last thing I could, I logged on in safe mode and from there I uninstalled everything that did not have the word Windows in it under the Sound, video and game controllers tab. At this point I would like to point out that I am running Win 2k and have no controllers, so if you have any controllers be careful as to what you delete.

After finishing that previous step I restarted the comp and found that Winamp worked again, except for video; the next thing I did was reinstall Winamp and I am now able to view video without any problems.

i got the same problem on my notebook (directsound output v2.31 (d) error. bad directsound driver.error code 87780078)

i have check my hardware system, all is OK, no exclamation points. i have reistalled sound driver both from the recovery-cd and microsoft, no exclamation point but still the same problem.

for winamp,i have setup the preferences-->output and succes. winamp work properly. but for the others media player (windows media, real player, quick time etc), there's still problem.

in the Direct Diagnostic Tool, i have test DirectSound, and the some problem still occured.

help plz, thx 😟

This seems to be a very popular problem. This is a problem that brings many people to OZZU. Usually restarting does it for me.

my system runs normally till i use harman kardon soundstick I speaker...

when i use that speaker i cant hear any sound. there's only about 5s n the sound is gone....

it starts when my winamp occur

"error creating directsound buffer
error code: 88780078

i use AMD64 3200+ 754
ATI 9600XT 256MB
Winamp 5.13
DirectX 9.0c
WinXP Pro SP2

help me pls ppl.
note: it only happen if i use that harman kardon speaker, f i change to my altec lansing everthings run normally. n my harman kardon speaker run well in other pc. but in my pc its grrrrr...

The same happened to me,and I tried almost everything mentioned in this thread. I also had "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services" needing to close at startup. After searching for solutions to that error I fopund the following that fixed the problem

"this is how I fixed it:

CONTROL PANEL>ADMINISTRATION TOOLS>SERVICES>SCROLL DOWN TO 'WINDOWS AUDIO' AND START THE SERVICE (HIGHLIGHT IT AND THEN CLICK ON START)

I hope this helps others, as I have been helped.
Eric

I have a similar problem, but it's still kind of tangential to this. I mean, I got the same error in winamp, but i'm pretty sure my problem stems from a different issue. i was brought here by a google search of my error message as well.

Sound doesn't work at all on my computer. It did a couple of days ago, when I had Windows XP Home Edition (I just bought this computer), but I replaced it with Professional, and since then the sound hasn't been working. The problem is, it can't detect the sound card. It's not in the device manager list, and when I go to control panel>Sounds and Audio Devices, it tells me that there is no audio device. This is kinda perplexing, because this sound card is integrated into the motherboard, and there shouldnt be any trouble detecting it.

It is a "Integrated 7.1 Capable Intel(R) High Def. Audio" card (thats from the specs on HP's website). I can't find any drivers for it on Intel's website, and it seems otherwise nonexistent or undetected on my computer.

In device manager, there are a few problem devices. They are sub-listed under "other devices.":
PCI device
SM Bus Controller
Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

Those all have the yellow exclamation marks. Any chance it could be one of those? Thanks.

I had that 88780078 problem with my winamp where no sound was being played on my computer. Then I did that thing where you disable and enable it under the my computer manager thing and then I went to the winamp plugin thing and my sound card appeard so I could change it from the generic one.

Right now, my normal windows plays its basic startup sounds 'n such and my winamp sounds work but my games sounds, my limewire sound, my WMA sound and pretty much any other kind of sound isn't working. My computer wont let me use my volume - or + buttons on my keyboard or my mute button either....What do I do?!?! Sound is like...needed! 😱

Exactly ! THIS'S REALLY WORKING ...

CONTROL PANEL>ADMINISTRATION TOOLS>SERVICES>SCROLL DOWN TO 'WINDOWS AUDIO'>IN PROPERTIES, SET 'STARTUP TYPE' TO AUTOMATIC AND START IT

-masimet-

I've been having this same problem for a few months now. It just happened out of nowhere one day, no changes to the soundcard driver or anything. I did try the Winamp fix in preferences though and changed it to my soundcard in the list and that helped, but it doesn't help anything else.

When I load Volume Control it gives me an error message "There are no active mixers available." Restarting has always helped this, but I shouldn't have to do that... what's the REAL problem?

I'm using a Creative Audigy 2 NX USB soundcard with updated drivers. The problem started before I updated any drivers, so I don't understand this.

"CONTROL PANEL>ADMINISTRATION TOOLS>SERVICES>SCROLL DOWN TO 'WINDOWS AUDIO'>IN PROPERTIES, SET 'STARTUP TYPE' TO AUTOMATIC AND START IT "

I am telling you all, problem solved. The one who posted that is right, it works. I registered here just to tell you people that hehh. Please try that, I'm almost 100% sure it'll work. Yay I'm smarter now.

-Mikael

ALL YOU PPL SAID DIDNT WORK FOR ME!?!? But there is allways BUT... i found the way out by my self with a little of everyones notes.. I'll write what i did to make everything work, i mean the winamp (direct sound) and stuff...
1) As everyone said, go right click My Computer > Manage > Device Manager
2) Look for exclamasion marks in "Sound, video and game controllers" as someone allready said.
3) You dont do that crap as enable or disable (if that didnt work after all 🙂 ) and just right click > UPDATE DRIVER

Everything sorted out for me like that... my winamp didnt give the error message of dirrect sound driver and everything is going well so far. If that doesnt help, then i realy DONT KNOW any other way to help... But you can allways ask... 🙄

Peace

Strange how popular this problem seems to be and there is still no clear and definitive solution, rather hack'n'slash methods that seem to work on a case-by-case basis.

I would simply advise uninstalling WinAmp, downloading and installing the latest version of WinAmp and Direct X, both.

I had the same problem. This is how I fixed it.

I went into device manager. I had two question mark icons. I went into properties and had it update the drivers threw windows update, and everything worked after that.

yo.. fer real..
MOD EDIT: I think this means "This is for real" or "This is not a joke"

darkapprentice.. is a mah'f*cken genius..
MOD EDIT: "darkapprentice is very smart and following his advice helped me solve this problem"

mah proll'em.. is.. fix'd cuhz!
MOD EDIT: "My problem is now resolved"

oh, i've got the same problem with my Sound driver for a month! But the problem is that I accidently deleted this program by my self! I've tried everything suggested here, but nothing helped!
So, if there is any other sollution, please help me!

Sigi

i've been to other forums w/ this problem and nothing has helped so far

so far i've learned i had a foxconn audio connector jack and i dont know what sound card or audio chip i have i cant even see anything familiar when i open up my comp and look at the motherboard

i looked on intel's page for my the model of my mobo and found that it's supposed to have soundMAX (i.e. analog devices) ad1985 codec integrated or something like that, so i downloaded a driver for that which didnt work since it's not compatible w/ XP

i downloaded a realtek driver which also didnt work

i search for DirectSound which doesnt work

i did the winamp ctrl+p --> Plug-Ins --> Output --> i see:
-DirectSound output v2.43 (d) [out_ds.dll]
-waveOut output v2.1 (d) [out_wave.dll]
i dont know what to do w/ that

and of course dxdiag shows no sound card detected

basically:
NO SOUND STARTING UP OR FROM PROGRAMS
UNSURE OF WHAT SOUND CARD I HAVE

YAY I FOUND AN XP COMPATIBLE AD1985 DRIVER!![/b]

I solved my problem easily by going into Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Hardware tab - click your audio device [mine is a Realtek AC'97] - Properties button - Driver tab - click Roll Back Driver

that fixed it for me

This became a problem for me after I installed a Windows update. If that's the case with you, just roll back your driver.

Ya so I just got new speakers today [ Heart Black Friday ]. This is the first time I've gotten this error. When my speakers are plugged in the sound/audio stuff in Control Panel are disabled. Meaning I cannot select my speakers from the list. No Windows sounds play. No sounds period.

This problem only happens with my speakers. I have DSP500 Headphones [ For my gaming ] and they work just fine.

Quick help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, newly installed windows xp, trying to get some sound out of my computer and cant - it does error beeps, but wont play anything else! i have a motherboard sound card and a soundblaster live! 5.1 sound card but neither are found when my computer is looking for a sound device - it just says there is none!
Have installed all recent drivers for soundcard/motherboard/dx but still nothing.
(i used to have the multimedia audio controller error but have just fixed that - now another one has come along!)
When in sounds and audio devices in control panel it says i have no audio device - please help me!
Thanks.....

heres my 2 cents. Got this problem and ofc googled it, and this being the first site up, I had a little look at it. Found the methods to be a little overkill and so I found a fast solution to one of the baddirectsound error's.

I found that when using recording programs within windows, it can commonly change what method of sound your using for wave and microphone (changed mine to a recording driver instead of my usual c-media).

So my advice is this, go into your control panel and then into your sound settings and make sure that the wave and microphone settings are set back to their usual sound card drivers instead of another piece of software you may have used previously.

Granted to some people this may just be insulting their intelligence, but hey, if it worked for me and can stop someone deleting a helluva load of files that they have on their pc then I regret nothing.

Have fun

my winamp works now but now on some songs it plays but softly than explodes to the regular way the song plays. I also noticed that the songs that do this r songs that if u use headsets it plays on one earphone, than the other, than both. It also wont play sound from Youtube. can anyone help?

Here is something that you can try i was going nuts all day trying every thing on this forum but what i found was my problem and may help you out or anyone else. for a lot of the dells and hp they use soundMAX you can either find it on your drivers and utilities installation CD or you can go to your manufacturer website. i hope that will help.

-earlier post was for-

oh, i've got the same problem with my Sound driver for a month! But the problem is that I accidently deleted this program by my self! I've tried everything suggested here, but nothing helped!

So, if there is any other sollution, please help me!

Sigi

hope that helps
-Pigskin-

Okay, here is my problem.

Firstly, I have no sound anywhere...this isn't simply a problem with winamp as far as I can see. I have gotten the newest drivers for my motherboard and for the onboard AC97 audio card. Suffice to say, this didn't help.

There is the exclamation mark next to the device, which is appropriately called "Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver (WDM)", which is obviously my audio driver and gives the error "This device cannot start (Code 10)". My speakers are not detected when plugged in.

Methods I have tried:

1) Disable the Enable the device. (No effect, although I wish this one would have helped. What a great remedy it would be.)
2) Uninstalling the device completely and then letting plug-and-play pick it up. (It worked smoothly. However, the device was merely reinstalled displaying the same error. So no effect.)
3) Downloaded completely updated drivers from seedy backalley sites. (Albeit the word seedy and backalley are in there...the drivers worked, installed properly, and I now have updated drivers...but it didn't restore my sound. So no effect)
4) Browsed around all the settings in sound and audio. They all say that no device is selected for any part of my audio setup, and when I attempt to choose the appropriate drivers, it does nothing because "This device cannot start (Code 10)"...uh...suffice to say, no effect.

I was going to go fix the .dll that people were talking about, but I actually couldn't figure out how to do so. And in the end, it doesn't seem like breaking my back over considering I'd like my sound to work on all parts of my computer, not just in winamp.

I suppose it would be somewhat proper to mention that the problem started after taking my computer completely downstairs (Unplugging all the components, etc...) in order to hook it up to the TV we have down there. I plugged an S-Video cord from the back of my video card into the TV...which displayed the video just fine...but was absent of audio and began giving me the error we're talking about. I figured it was just because the speakers weren't meant to work with your computer and plugged mine in. But to no avail, the error persisted. I figured that maybe there was some type of data conflict from the S-Video cable, and decided it wasn't a big deal. Took it back upstairs and the error persisted and my sound is nowhere to be seen...or rather heard.

Anyone think they can fix my problem?

EDIT 1: I have now actually uninstalled the drivers alltogether, and downloaded the official drivers from the site to install the card again. This has, as may be assumed, still not helped.

EDIT 2: Well I gave up and got a new sound card. I suppose I may have fried my old one when I unplugged all the components, but the computer works fine now with the new sound card.

This is how I solved the same problem:

Go to Start -> Settings -> ControlPanel -> Administrative Tools -> Services.
Here, find the service named Windows Audio, which manages Windows audio devices.
If this service is stopped then audio and its associated components will not work. Set its Startup property to Automatic so that it starts everytime when you start your system.

This fixed my problem

I also have this problem.
I've got a Fujitsu Siemens laptop, and today the sound went off. I did disable it with the little icon on the bottom of the screen as advertisements were annoying me! The sound card has now kinda disabled itself. I get this error message in the sound area in the control pannel:
"This device cannot start. (Code 10)"
I've tried most of what you guys have said already, downloading stuff, virus checking ect etc. What do I do now?
If anyone has any advice, I'd greatly take it! 😁
Thanks,
ConfusedComputer.

I'm getting this same error, but nothing here has worked for me. I am using Windows XP 64 Professional and a Creative Audigy 4 sound card. First: No sound will play anywhere -- no start up noises, nothing -- not just in WinAMP.

• In the control panel, under Sounds and Audio Devices, it says "No Audio Device" and it does not let me select one in any of the tabs.

• I had this problem before after a Windows update and reinstalling my sound card drivers fixed it. It did not fix it this time. I'm also not certain that I had any Windows updates install recently, although I have them set to automatic so they may have.

• Rebooting doesn't change anything, either.

• Updating/reinstalling DirectX drivers did not fix the problem.

• When I look at the out_ds.dll in WinAMP preferences, its only option is 01: Primary Sound Driver. Under Device Info there, it says:

error getting device info
(device in use ?)

• I do not have any exclamation points under the Device Manager.

• Windows Audio is not stopped or anything under Services; when I open it, it is running, and it is set to automatically load and all that. Telling it to restart the service doesn't fix the problem either.

• I did a full system scan with Symantec and I don't have a virus or anything like that. I always keep virus scan open and I always run a firewall and I don't really visit sites that would give me viruses, so I'm certain it's not that.

I'm really frustrated by this. 😟 I thought reinstalling the sound card drivers would work like it did before, but nope, and no other popular solutions seem to work either. Any ideas? 😟

I don't have any errors. My computer refuses to play any sound altogether. Below is the things I did in attempt to fix it...

Start > Run > dxdiag > Music > Test DirectMusic

On the above steps, the music didn't play on all of the options except one... VIA Audio (WAVE) (music actually played for that option).

How do I make VIA Audio (WAVE) my default player medium (or whatever it is)?

There was a problem on VIA MIDI Extornal Port. (Failure on step 5 (Creating the IDirectMusicPort): HRESULT = 0x80004005 (Generic Failure).

I went through many troubleshooting at windows help. Nothing helped. Any help would be great. Thanks.

I went to the Drivers list and there was no problems on any drivers. All of the drivers associated with audio was in use.

Can anyone help? Do I need a new sound card?

Did you test Direct Sound bogey?
You can set your default device for stuff using "Sounds and Audio Devices" in Control Panel.

Sorry, newbe bringing back an OLD thread. But In searching for a solution to this problem, almost every search brought me to this thread, so I wanted to post my solution for anyone else that my come across this problem and this thread.
I tried all the suggestions here, several times without success. As a last resort prior to adding a sound card, I put my XPpro disk back in and went through the "upgrade" process. BINGO when it was done, sound worked! During the upgrade process I got a message about the driver being unsigned, I clicked continue anyway, and all is good now.
Hope this might help out someone else!
THANKS

I opened up my Winamp 5.01, and tried to play a song. Alas, I got an error that says:

Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.
Error code: 88780078

twitch

What happened?

ok.. i didn't take the time to read through the entire 5 pages, so here's a proper answer to the question:

go to

https://www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/O/out_ds.dll/-/download.html

download the dll, copy the dll file, close winamp if you have it open, locate your winamp folder (default is c:/program files/winamp/) and then locate the plugins folder in your winamp folder. paste the dll there and press "yes" when windows asks if you really want to overwrite out_ds.dll. open up winamp again, and it will work...

Hope that helps:) have fun listening to music:)

This is how I solved the same problem:

Go to Start -> Settings -> ControlPanel -> Administrative Tools -> Services.
Here, find the service named Windows Audio, which manages Windows audio devices.
If this service is stopped then audio and its associated components will not work. Set its Startup property to Automatic so that it starts everytime when you start your system.

This fixed my problem

This did not work for me. THis happened on my past Win XP home install, i narrowed down to 4 offending WINDOWS OFFICIAL UPDATES.

The sad part is I did reinstall windows (upgraded hard drives) and this update happened again.

Once i figure which of these four it is, i'll repost:

KB935839
KB935840
KB900485
KB929123

I hope this helps.

I went to my Winamp and it is version 5.20 and if you go to the WinAmp Preferences (Ctrl+p)and click on output. There is a option on my end to select DirectSound Output Then there is a dll called out_ds.dll i would take the next step to find what that dll does and assume that you are missing it.

-> this helped me fix the problem 🙂
thanks 😁

how do i do it it doesnt work for me either plz somebody tell me

You have to install that dll into your computer. Kind of hard to explain here.

Yes, I am experiacing the same problem as well as everyone. It gives me the

Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.

Error code: 88780078

Can someone help me? I'm not really sure what I did wrong, but I have a good idea what I did I accidently deleted some stuff from my add or remove programs but I forgot what stuff I deleted.. I think one of them was "Soundmax" or something.. Also, this isn't a winamp problem either, after that add and remove programs thing, NONE of my sounds work. And I been trying to work with it but can't seem to find a solution. On my winamp thing I have the following listed:
Nullsoft DiskWriter v2.13 [out_disk.dll]
Nullsoft DirectSound Output v2.47 (d) [out_ds.dll]
Nullsoft Waveout Output v2.11 (d) [out_wave.dll]

Anyone please help, I need my sound lol.

Try this:

Right click on My Computer
Manage
Device Manager
go down to where the exclamation point is
Right click to Disable, then Enable it.

Worked for me.

Listen to this guy... I did it and it worked out fine for me.... thanks a sh1t load man.. a fkn GENIUS! 😁 ;D

I opened up my Winamp 5.01, and tried to play a song. Alas, I got an error that says:

Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.
Error code: 88780078

twitch

What happened?

i had the same situation as everyone else and when i read what people did on here this happen and i got it working again:

1)CTRL+P on winamp and CLICK on OUTPUT
2) Make sure DIRECTSOUND OUTPUT is highlight and then CLICK on CONFIGURE
3) on mine... i switched it to REALTEK AC97 AUDIO

for some strange reason i think it was set on Primary Sound Drive and i don't know if that has any effect at all to it... it works fine for me after doing that.... ^_^"

Hi! I'm having the same problem and the same error message pops up. But everything gets back to normal the moment I restart my computer. after about an hour or two, the error occurs again and I have to restart again. It's like when my computer is freshly turned on, everything is fine but after some time the error happens again. Not only Winamp will not work but also media player and anything that has sounds such as Express Scribe. When I check my control panel, it says that there is no hardware found for sounds even if everything worked perfectly when I turned the computer initially. It's okay since I'm able to fix the problem by restarting but it's annoying that I have to restart every now and then... To the guys having the same problem, try restarting and see if the same thing happens.

.... I also have to add that I have reformatted my entire system because of this, so my system is good as new, but still the problem persisted and I still have to reboot every now and then just for it to work properly, but apparently it would work just for an hour or two...

Two days ago, I can open both windows media player and winamp to play at the same time(actually any music player combination). Yesterday I found "Bad DirectSound Driver ... " errro message. I can only close the software which is using the soundcard in order to use another music player. This is against my previous experience and I knew for sure there must be a solution to recover to previous stage. I search google and lead me here. What I did is exactly as you guys told me .

1. Open Winamp
2. Ctrl + P to bring up preference window
3. Look down to Plug-ins-->Output
4. There are three choices in my case.
   1)waveOut output v2.0.3 [out_wave.dll]
   2)Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in v2.0c (x86) [out_disk.dll]
   3)DirectSound output v2.2.12 [out_ds.dll]
5. before I make any change, it highlights the third choice.
   Then I click the first choice to highlight it, next click "Configure" .
6. A new window called "waveOut setting" pops out
7. in Device:drop down box , I switch to "Crystal SoundFusion(tm)" --->that's my sound card.
8. Done... Now I can open several media playing softwares to play musics at the same time.. BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN

My guessing: It's Winamp's new update cause that trouble. If you happens to come here, you find a solution. In my case, I knew that my soundcard has not any problem in terms of doing simultaneous jobs. It's the software which controls multi-jobs..

OKAY I am so fed up with this!!! I tried this, and I was so sure it would work because you went step by step. BUTTTT.... in the drop down, I only have one option...I'm clueless as to what my "original soundcard" is all it says is " 01: Primary Sound Driver "

That is my ONLY option and i re-chose it and it's still not working. Someone PLEASE help me I am almost in tears. I have no clue what I even did for this to happen...

I also had this problem.
I was playing a game. It lost sound then the pc locked up. I rebooted and then started getting the error message. There was nothing wrong in device manager. Windows did not recognise my sound card (SB X-Fi Elite Pro) in winamp or control panel. Media player showed video with no sound and no error.

Tried a bunch of stuff from this forum that didn't work.

After powering down I opened up the case and pushed on the sound card a bit and then it recognised it but still no sound but also no error message. Played with the sound card again, booted up and up she fired after 1.5 hours of silence.

I just joined this forum to post this as I don't remember reading this solution and as a thanks for all those who have posted trying to help.

For those of you scanning through all of this...

Try reseating the sound card and make sure if it needs power that it is connected.

I have had that same dang problem twice now. In the Preferences section it keeps changing my soundcard from the one I have (RealTek) to a generic one and I get that irritating "WUMP!" and the error message. We must have all contracted the same trojan lol.

Good luck, people!

Here is what you do.
Go to start menu
Run and type services.msc in services find Windows Audio double click it and click Start and tadaa 🙂 it's simple , easy and fun and you 'll see the results if it doesn't work may i die instantly 🙂

Well!

Aki has proven otherwise q q remains sound.
In my case I Salia a message of "you are a victim of software counterfeiting"
it is assumed that it was affecting q, q outside the fake copy was screwing programs, no? ¿
Q me I was not that message appears l cn Parxe permanent d Windows Genuine Advantage...

Cn sound but there is no way, and what reinstate pc restarts...sounds like the sound of entry...then in seconds it will sound again.

Say if you do not send WebOS...
aaagh! I put black toy!
If he were anyone knows a solution + practicing?
q is not me Rula ningunaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

A doubt, DQ hell I post the message 2 times?

heres my 2 cents. Got this problem and ofc googled it, and this being the first site up, I had a little look at it. Found the methods to be a little overkill and so I found a fast solution to one of the baddirectsound error's.

I found that when using recording programs within windows, it can commonly change what method of sound your using for wave and microphone (changed mine to a recording driver instead of my usual c-media).

So my advice is this, go into your control panel and then into your sound settings and make sure that the wave and microphone settings are set back to their usual sound card drivers instead of another piece of software you may have used previously.

Granted to some people this may just be insulting their intelligence, but hey, if it worked for me and can stop someone deleting a helluva load of files that they have on their pc then I regret nothing.

Have fun

You are a champ man.

I tried pretty much everything up until this guy had posted on page 4 with no luck. Turns out, somehow my sound had been changed to input instead of output. I went into volume control and clicked options - properties, then simply changed the setting from input to output, clicking playback as well. I hope this helps a lot of people out because it is one annoying problem.

I opened up my Winamp 5.01, and tried to play a song. Alas, I got an error that says:

Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.
Error code: 88780078

twitch

What happened?

reinstall your sound drivers.

➡ I read the advice of the 1st page posters about the out_ds.dll files and how installing/updating Winamp caused it to switch the sound card settings.

I just did it and it worked.. Also notice that some others said that they had TRIED to reinstall and up date their drivers and it did not work. It didn't work for me either!

But, as I stated above, going in and changing the device back to my actual sound card worked! So thanks!

➡ ALSO! It effected my Vent settings as well... As soon as the Ventrillo settings were set back the same way I did with the Winamp it worked as well!

😁

winamp drivers are not compatible to the windows sound drivers.

go to the my computer right click on it.
go to the device manager
check the sound drivers.
if the sound drivers have the exclamation sign than disable the drivers and again enable it.
try to reinstall the drivers.

update the winamp version.

Go to the start menu and then click Run.
In the box type in "services.msc" and a screen will pop up.
Scroll down to Windows Audio and click on it.
If you are having the "Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in configuration.
Error code: 88780078" error then Windows Audio is currently turned off. Right click it and click Start.

A loading screen will show up and after that goes away your audio should now work :]

hi am using windows 7 build 7100 i get the same msg "error code 88890010 wid the same msg" pls help!!............ thanx in adv

"CONTROL PANEL>ADMINISTRATION TOOLS>SERVICES>SCROLL DOWN TO 'WINDOWS AUDIO'>IN PROPERTIES, SET 'STARTUP TYPE' TO AUTOMATIC AND START IT "

I have the same settings as they should be, but I hear no sound through speakers. My problem is little different - I hear sound from each application except for Winamp in speakers and in headphones too. But Winamp plays its sound only in headphones. When I unplugged them, there is silence (when only Winamp plays or I hear other apps' sound).
Has anyone any advice how to solve it?