Realtek AudioProcessingObject Driver Update (13.4329.2249.712) made my microphone stop working

Question

Realtek AudioProcessingObject Driver Update (13.4329.2249.712) made my microphone stop working

Arturo Zamora 0

I work for a company that uses surface pros. Every single one that received this update. Realtek AudioProcessingObject Driver Update (13.4329.2249.712), the microphone stopped working. It shows up. Its in sound settings. Though I do a microphone test, the volume shows at 0% and nothing records. All the things I have tried with no success.

Rolling back the driver.
Uninstalling the driver, restarting the computer and allowing it to automatically reinstall.
Disabling and re-enabling.
Going into Services and restarting Windows Audio
Manually installing a different driver from list provided.
Disabling enhancements.
Ensuring permissions were granted in Privacy & security (When I tried using Sound Recorder, It gave me an error saying no device found so it took me to Privacy & security but all the options were checked to on.)
I went into CMD and typed these commands one line at a time. net stop audiosrv net stop AudioEndpointBuilder net start AudioEndpointBuilder net start audiosrv
Tried running the diagnose tool but it only provided articles to read which did not help me.
Plugging the Surface Pro into a doc as well as testing it with a headset.

Is there something I am missing. Every tablet that has received this update so far has made the microphone no longer work. I would of assumed that rolling back would of fixed it, but it still didn't work.

Anthony Farrell 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-07-20T17:56:28.55+00:00

Could you tell me which Surface Pro devices you are using? Also, did you download the driver directly from Realtek?
Arturo Zamora 0 Reputation points

2026-07-20T19:41:24.3766667+00:00

The driver came through Windows Update. The issue has occurred on Surface Pro 8 and 9 so far. I managed to get audio working again be completely uninstalling that driver and rolling back to its previous driver.
Zak Santos 0 Reputation points

2026-08-14T16:14:22.5466667+00:00

We were only experiencing it on our Surface pro 8 devices. We installed the newest version by getting it from the windows update catalogue, fixing the issue.

3 answers

Your answer

Anthony Farrell 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-07-20T17:56:28.55+00:00

Could you tell me which Surface Pro devices you are using? Also, did you download the driver directly from Realtek?
Arturo Zamora 0 Reputation points

2026-07-20T19:41:24.3766667+00:00

The driver came through Windows Update. The issue has occurred on Surface Pro 8 and 9 so far. I managed to get audio working again be completely uninstalling that driver and rolling back to its previous driver.
Zak Santos 0 Reputation points

2026-08-14T16:14:22.5466667+00:00

We were only experiencing it on our Surface pro 8 devices. We installed the newest version by getting it from the windows update catalogue, fixing the issue.

Answer 1

I had this issue and only found this thread whilst I was running a post-mortem. I fixed this issue on a Surface Pro 8 last month, as it was a one off I didn't spend time on a post-mortem but the issue returned yesterday so I spent more time on it and identified this driver as the cause.

My fix last month was:
devmgmt - View, show hidden devices

Uninstalled all Sound, video and game controllers, Audio Processing Objects, Audio inputs and outputs - deleted drivers where option offered

Rebooted

Downloaded and ran SurfacePro8_Win11_22631_26.073.32221.0.msi

Rebooted - issue resolved

Today I was able to fix by rolling back the driver in device manager, then deleted from the store "pnputil /delete-driver oem212.inf /uninstall /force", I will now try to block in Intune.

Shame Microsoft have issues like this when it is their own hardware, they should have good control on their driver update catalogues to prevent these issues, and when they occur, they should step in to block the update and resolve.

Answer 2

Alex-L 13,165 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Arturo Zamora

I saw your reply saying you managed to get the audio working again.

Just to confirm, did rolling back to the previous driver restore both audio output (speakers) and microphone input functionality on your Surface Pro 8 and 9?

If not, please do keep us posted to so we can provide further support.

Have a great day!

0 comments

Answer 3

It’s a bad Realtek APO update being repeatedly re-applied by Windows Update — you must block the update and reinstall Surface OEM audio drivers cleanly.

Block Windows from reinstalling the driver:

Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.

Double-click Do Not Include Drivers with Windows Updates.

Turn off driver updates via Windows Update / policy

Remove the bad Realtek audio package completely

Not just Device Manager rollback (must remove driver package from system)

Install the correct Surface OEM audio driver pack

Use Microsoft Surface official driver bundle (not generic Realtek)

Reboot and let Windows rebuild audio stack cleanly