Windows 10 gets a patch for game audio issues – and everyone wonders what it might break

Windows 10 May 2019 Update has received yet another cumulative update which fixes a number of bugs including an issue whereby the audio had gone wonky in certain games.

The freshly released KB4517211 fixes that particular gremlin which was introduced by the previous KB4515384 cumulative update, which itself was brought in to resolve a bug whereby Cortana was causing high CPU usage.

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Essentially, the fix for the Cortana problem broke game audio in certain cases (as well as demolishing search in the Start menu and Taskbar, we might add), and this new patch is the solution to that.

The specific problem as described by Microsoft was that “audio in certain games is quieter or different than expected after installing this [KB4515384] update”. So in-game sound effects were going badly wrong and coming out very quiet or muffled, or indeed inaudible (depending on the angle you were positioned to the character talking, with voice audio) in some of the reports we’ve seen online.

The new KB4517211 update addresses this audio problem, and also a separate issue that “may cause audio playback and recording to fail when connecting to a remote virtual machine”.

VPN and HDR woes solved

There are a number of other fixes here, too, including solutions for app crashes in certain cases, and a gremlin which caused VPN connections to drop out intermittently when being used over a cellular network.

Other notable remedies are delivered for those owning laptops with HDR screens who have been experiencing their display turning white, and for folks on older PCs who’ve been prevented from upgrading to Windows 10 by a display driver error.

Okay, so that’s a good dollop of fixing, but the inevitable question on many people’s lips – given the recent clattering domino-effect of fixes causing more problems than they solve – will be: so what does this update break, then? We can but hope that the answer is nothing.

Meantime, a quick glance on Reddit is all that’s needed to pick up the general mood and reception to Microsoft’s latest cumulative update: “Waiting this out a bit for obvious reasons.”

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Via Bleeping Computer