How to Enable/Disable audio devices

Question

How to Enable/Disable audio devices

Ramashankar 25

Hi,

I want to enable/disable audio devices listed in sound control panel (mmsys.cpl) but either through programmatically or through any power shell commands/scripts or windows internal utilities(pnputil, devcon).

I tried using WMI APIs, Core Audio APIs, pnputil, devcon utilities. But with any of these I am either able to enable/disable an audio endpoint from (AudioEndpoint class) or a media device (Media class). None of these provide similar behavior what we get when disabling audio device through right clicking on it in sound control panel.

Observations:

If I use device id of an AudioEndpoint to disable, it gets disabled only in device manager under 'Audio inputs and outputs' section, but not in sound control panel or any other application which are using it.
If I use device id of a Media to disable, it gets disabled in device manager under 'Sound, video and game controllers' section, but removes the devices completely from sound control panel.
If I disable the device from sound control panel by right clicking on it, it gets disabled and unavailable for all apps immediately. It also gets removed from 'Audio inputs and outputs' section in device manager but no impact in 'Sound, video and game controllers' section.

I want to achieve this observation (3) through program or commands.

Please suggest how to do it.

Thanks.

Accepted answer

2 additional answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Castorix31 88,376

If you want to disable a sound device like in the Sound Control Panel, it is done with IPolicyConfig and SetEndpointVisibility

Answer 2

Castorix31 88,376

SetupDiSetClassInstallParams + SetupDiCallClassInstaller in x64

Xiaopo Yang - MSFT 12,731 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-03-15T02:09:47.37+00:00

@Ramashankar Agrahari (India), there is an example you can refer to.
Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-03-15T11:53:11.11+00:00

Hi Castorix31 and Xiaopo Yang,

Thanks for your quick reply and suggestion.

Earlier, I had used the Setup APIs (SetupDiGetClassDevs, SetupDiEnumDeviceInfo) to enumerate all devices of class guid 'Media' and 'AudioEndpoint', and then used CM_Enable_DevNode and CM_Disable_DevNode APIs to enable/disable those devices.

Though it was enabling/disabling devices successfully, but the result (observation 1,2 above) was not same as what we get by disabling the audio device from sound control panel (observation 3).

I will now explore these (SetupDiSetClassInstallParams + SetupDiCallClassInstaller) APIs also and test the behavior again.

Thanks.
Xiaopo Yang - MSFT 12,731 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-03-19T08:01:58.7966667+00:00

@Ramashankar Agrahari (India), Is there any update about the issue? You can see DICS_DISABLE for more information.

Ramashankar 25

Hi Castorix31 and Xiaopo Yang,

I tried this (SetupDiSetClassInstallParams + SetupDiCallClassInstaller) with DICS_DISABLE but unfortunately it is also working in same manner. That is,

if I provide guid of media class it disables that media device completely and devices are gone from sound control panel (refer image1.png)
if I provide guid of audioendpoint class then it disables the device in device manager but doesn't disable it in sound control panel or in any app which are using it (refer image2.png).

However, I want to achieve this behavior programmatically (refer image3.png) where devices are shown disabled in sound control panel.

PS: Same problematic behavior is also explained well in this thread in detail.

[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/disabling-audio-inputoutput-microphonespeakeretc/21b269be-ab85-4617-9be4-92c93873ff52]

[EDIT:] Images were not getting attached in this comment itself, so I added them as a new comment in this thread]

Here is the sample code I used:

#include <SetupAPI.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <initguid.h> // Include for initializing GUIDs
#include <devguid.h> // Include for device class GUIDs

#pragma comment(lib, "Setupapi.lib")

const GUID GUID_DEVCLASS_AUDIOENDPOINT =
{ 0xc166523cL, 0xfe0c, 0x4a94, 0xa5, 0x86, 0xf1, 0xa8, 0x0c, 0xfb, 0xbf, 0x3e };

//GUID audioClassGuid = GUID_DEVCLASS_AUDIOENDPOINT;
GUID audioClassGuid = GUID_DEVCLASS_MEDIA;

int ChangeDeviceState(bool bEnable) {
	// Get device information set for audio devices
	HDEVINFO devInfo = SetupDiGetClassDevs(&audioClassGuid, NULL, NULL, DIGCF_PRESENT);
	if (devInfo == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
		std::cerr << "Failed to get device information set." << std::endl;
		return 1;
	}

	// Enumerate all audio devices and disable them
	SP_DEVINFO_DATA devInfoData;
	ZeroMemory(&devInfoData, sizeof(devInfoData));
	devInfoData.cbSize = sizeof(devInfoData);

	for (DWORD i = 0; SetupDiEnumDeviceInfo(devInfo, i, &devInfoData); ++i) {
		// Set class installation parameters to disable the device
		SP_PROPCHANGE_PARAMS propChangeParams;
		ZeroMemory(&propChangeParams, sizeof(propChangeParams));
		propChangeParams.ClassInstallHeader.cbSize = sizeof(SP_CLASSINSTALL_HEADER);
		propChangeParams.ClassInstallHeader.InstallFunction = DIF_PROPERTYCHANGE;
		propChangeParams.Scope = DICS_FLAG_GLOBAL;
		if (bEnable) {
			propChangeParams.StateChange = DICS_ENABLE;
		}
		else {
			propChangeParams.StateChange = DICS_DISABLE;
		}
		propChangeParams.HwProfile = 0;

		if (!SetupDiSetClassInstallParams(devInfo, &devInfoData, &propChangeParams.ClassInstallHeader, sizeof(propChangeParams))) {
			std::cerr << "Failed to set class installation parameters for disabling the device." << std::endl;
			continue;
		}

		// Call class installer to disable the device
		if (!SetupDiCallClassInstaller(DIF_PROPERTYCHANGE, devInfo, &devInfoData)) {
			std::cerr << "Failed to call class installer to disable the device." << std::endl;
			continue;
		}

		std::cout << "Audio device status changed successfully." << std::endl;
		// Increment the size of the structure for the next iteration
		devInfoData.cbSize = sizeof(SP_DEVINFO_DATA);
	}
	// Clean up
	SetupDiDestroyDeviceInfoList(devInfo);
	return 0;
}

int main() {
	ChangeDeviceState(false);
	ChangeDeviceState(true);
}

Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-03-19T09:28:21.9566667+00:00

Reference Images:

Image_initial.png

image1.png

image2.png

image3.png
Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-03-20T06:36:46.6+00:00

Hi Castorix31,

I will check this also and update here. Thanks.
Xiaopo Yang - MSFT 12,731 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-03-25T05:33:03.94+00:00

@Ramashankar Agrahari (India), have you solved the issue? May you need an incident?
Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-04-01T06:24:53.0433333+00:00

Hi,

I could not get time to check it in last week due to some critical work. Will check it in this week and update.
Xiaopo Yang - MSFT 12,731 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-04-08T08:27:30.18+00:00

@Ramashankar Agrahari (India), any update about the question?
Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-04-09T09:37:28.0366667+00:00

Hi Castorix31 and Xiaopo Yang,

Yes, it worked. I tried SetEndpointVisibility() today and it worked perfectly the way I wanted.

Thank you very much for your help.

One more query:

Is there something similar for camera device also where only camera's availability can be controlled? Though I could enable/disable them using pnputil but it is enabling/disabling it completely in device manager.

Answer 3

Ramashankar 25

Accepted answer:

Castorix31 • Mar 19, 2024, 5:43 PM

If you want to disable a sound device like in the Sound Control Panel, it is done with IPolicyConfig and SetEndpointVisibility

Xiaopo Yang - MSFT 12,731 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2024-04-10T03:40:03.7733333+00:00

@Ramashankar Agrahari (India), could you please mark answer for the completion of this question?
Ramashankar 25 Reputation points

2024-04-10T05:12:26.8833333+00:00

Done.

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How to Enable/Disable audio devices

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