TLDR – no sound card on my windows 10 media server stops iTunes loading properly with windows because of an error message. Here, I show how installing a simple virtual sound card/device gets around this problem.
The problem:
I run a virtualised, ‘headless’ server environment at home. Because it is headless there is no local sound device. I have my ‘media server’ virtual machine (running windows 10) configured to login automatically and start the various services – plex, iTunes etc. automatically – just power on and forget. Recently, however, I have noticed that iTunes is prevented from starting up properly as it is interrupted by the following error message:
'iTunes has detected a problem with your Audio Configuration'
(Or similar)
This then requires user input (via remote desktop / RDC) to clear the message and for iTunes to load succesfully.
Simple Fix!
In my case this happens because the server has no Audio Hardware. In a server environment where there is no sound hardware you can resolve this issue by installing a virtual audio device via ‘Virtual Audio Cable’ (VAC):
Download the following free program (don’t install it yet!) and log out of RDC:
http://www.softpile.com/Multimedia/Audio/Review13135index.html (this is the virtual audio cable or VAC software)
Before installing VAC you must first ensure that you have set your RDC program for sound to be ‘played at the server’, not at the client you are logged in to. Sound output MUST be selected to: “Play in the remote PC” (RDC for Mac) or “leave at remote computer” (Windows RDC).
Log back in using RDC, close down iTunes and then run the Virtual Audio Cable setup file. Now start iTunes, you should not see any Audio configuration error messages.
One last note:
‘Netplwiz’ is your cmd prompt friend for configuring automatic logins without a password prompt, but do consider any potential security issues.
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