Resolve Issues with Windows Audio Service

Are you having issues with the Windows Audio service (Audiosrv) on your desktop or server? If the Windows Audio service continues to show up as 'Running' but fails to restart or users are all of a sudden unable to hear audio correctly, this one easy registry change may be the solution you're looking for.

Windows Audio Service issues are more commonly seen/experienced on Windows Server 2016/2019 more so than on Windows 10, however, this registry fix can be applied to either operating system to resolve the issue.

You'll want to log in to the affected device as a local administrator and then open up the run dialog (Windows Key + R) and type in regedit to open the registry editor.

Once you've opened the registry editor, head over to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Set the ServicePipeTimeout to 600000

Reboot the machine.

The Windows Audio service (with the service name of Audiosrv) issues should no longer occur after this change has been made and the machine has been rebooted. If users continue to experience audio issues, it is most likely going to be an issue with the installed drivers or with software such as VMware Tools in the event this is a virtual machine running on an ESXI host. I'd recommend you upgrade your VMware Tools and all system drivers in the event the issue continues to occur.