Hi. I recently installed Skyrim on my computer after I upgraded it to the Windows 10 preview. I'm having a problem with the game lacking any sounds other than the Bethesda Game Studios logo clip sounds. Immediately after that, the game is silent; no Dragonborn playing in the background of the main menu or menu sounds when I choose options from the main menu. If I go in-game it seems the music is playing just fine but if I do something like draw my weapon, that doesn't make a sound, and neither does anything else in the game world. Here's the long list of things I've tried which, according to what I've found through Google searches, are likely to solve the problem:

• Verify game files with Steam
• Verify presence and file size of Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
• Install DirectX redistributable
• Delete SkyrimPrefs.ini file from Documents\My Games\Skyrim
• Reinstall Skyrim and use clean Data folder
• Lower/raise Windows audio quality/sample rate
• Run game in windowed mode
• Not use external hard drive for game (only ever had one hard drive and one usable partition, C:)
• Check game sound volume levels in game's menu
• Confirm speaker setup in Windows Sound options (2.0 Stereo)
• Update (install) audio drivers from Realtek
• Enable Loudness Equalization setting in Realtek sound manager
• Disable Digital Output (SPDIF) in Windows Sound options
• Verify volume for Skyrim application in Windows volume mixer
• In Windows Sound options' Communications tab, select "Do nothing" for when Windows detects communications activity

None of these things made the game produce any sound other than the Bethesda logo clip. I ran it just fine on the same computer with Windows 7. If anyone has any other suggestions for solving this issue, please let me know. Otherwise, I will just assume it's a Windows 10 issue with it being a preview version and all, which I understand is likely, and just wait for a bugfix.

Might there be a compatibility mode option? If so, try windows 7.

I have no time to re-install Windows 10 preview on my PC. But i thing on the first released preview, skyrim has worked just fine for me...

Thanks for the comments/suggestions. I just tried the "Run in compatibility mode for Windows 7" option, but still I get no sounds.

Are other games working fine ???

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Take a look here: http://www.backspacetab.com/skyrim-sound-problem-fix-skyrim-problem-with-sound/

Have you tried to delete your SkyrimPrefs.ini as well ???

Yes, every other game I've played works without issues, though I haven't installed and tried many of them yet. I will try the suggestions in the page you linked to when I'm back on the computer with Skyrim on it. I've also deleted SkyrimPrefs.ini to let it be re-created; forgot to mention that. I'll just add it to the list.

Edit: I've just tried all the things from that link that I hadn't tried already. Mark41, your suggestion of deleting SkyrimPrefs.ini, although I had already tried that, brought my attention to another detail in the file. Looking in the AudioMenu section of SkyrimPrefs.ini, I noticed some values named uIDx, where 0 ≤ x ≤ 7. When I looked these up online, I found that, apparently, one of mine was not at the default value. I had uID3=0, when the default apparently should be uID3=94881. However, once I changed it to equal 94881, the problem didn't go away. After I saw someone on another forum mention that uID3 corresponds to the effect volume, I thought this was my problem for sure. I guess that if it wasn't at the default then deleting SkyrimPrefs.ini should have fixed it anyway. Well, this is just something I thought I'd mention which might be important.

Dump question !!!

Are your volume sliders in-game set to max ???

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There is fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000 in SkyrimPrefs.ini file. Try value of 1.5000 or 2.0000.

Another thing: bEnableAudio=1.0 - If this variable is added to the [Audio] section of Skyrim.ini and set to 0, it will disable all audio in the game. !!!

No, they weren't all on max, but they weren't all minimum either. I set them all to max and still got no sound. I also tried the fAudioMasterVolume settings of 1.5 and 2, but that didn't make a difference. About the bEnableAudio=1.0, it turns out I didn't have that setting added to my Skyrim.ini.

If you add it ??? At the [Audio] section on your Skyrim.ini file.

Okay, I just tried adding the line bEnableAudio=1.0 there. Still didn't make a difference, unfortunately.

EDIT: Ah, fixed it! I had, like I said, tried deleting SkyrimPrefs.ini to let it be remade by the game. However, I didn't try messing with Skyrim.ini, as I didn't want to lose my modifications to the sResourceArchiveList variables, where I had edited in the official high-resolution texture pack BSAs so I could avoid using the ESP files for those (figured they would cause unnecessary processing overhead and possible conflicts). As it happened, this pair of settings was exactly the cause of my problem. When I deleted Skyrim.ini and restarted the game, the menu sounds and all other game sounds were back! I then compared the backup I'd made of my old Skyrim.ini with the current and found that the ArchiveList variable modifications I'd made were indeed the cause of the problem. I'd changed it to:

[Archive]sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, HighResTexturePack03.bsa, HighResTexturePackFix.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsasResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Voicesixtra.bsa

[Archive]sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsasResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Voicesixtra.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, HighResTexturePack03.bsa, HighResTexturePackFix.bsa

Strange, but I guess the problem is probably that adding these to the first line made it too long to process somehow, so Skyrim - Sounds.bsa was left out by the game when it loaded. Must be that's the reason for having two lines for archives...

Anyway, thanks for responding to all who tried to help me figure this out. Finally, I can play Skyrim again, and hopefully this helps out other people if anyone else messes up edits like I'd made.

Nice, man...have fun. !!!