[ms office - 2010] Inserting Audio Without Audio Device

[madurham]

One of our IT teachers has come across a problem for his students and I'm not sure how to resolve it.

Office won't allow you to insert audio files without an enabled audio device. When I try I receive this error: "Powerpoint cannot perform this operation because the audio device is not available."

 

Is there a way to allow audio insertion without an attached device? Or enable a device without headphones/speakers being plugged in?

[fairm010]

I start the Audio service at logon for all users, this makes the PC think there is a device installed. Probably not the best solution but it was quick and worked!

[madurham]

'Windows Audio'? That's already set to automatic.

[fairm010]

But is it started? Typically it does not start until an audio device is plugged in.

[madurham]

Yeah, it's running. Just tested a few more and a couple in our other suites they are all running.

[madurham]

I wanted to just say I have resolved the problem.

 

I found that in playback devices we had the usual devices, 'HDMI audio' etc. They were all unplugged because the Zoostorm's don't have an internal speaker.

 

What I did was install a virtual audio cable. These seem to be used for routing sound internally but for us we just needed it's existence. Office then allows the insertion of audio from a file. It even set headphones as the active playback device when you plug them in, so there's no faff for students.