Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sound Recorder in Vista is Completely Useless

I’m sad to say that the sound recorder in MS Vista really sucks! A lot of useful features are gone after switching from XP to Vista. I really don’t understand why they want to do that. Did they do it in purpose? Some said it is for copy protection? Record it illegally? It doesn’t make sense because Windows Media Player has the recording capability.

From this:


To this:


Some of the cool features like increasing and decreasing the volume of recordings, adding echo, reversing, editing the file and etc have no longer there in MS Vista. The worst part is you CANNOT playback what you have recorded. You must save it and play it with Windows Media Player. What the heck?

With this new sound recorder, you can basically do 2 things only – record from microphone or line-in and save the file. That’s it. It is really inconvenient every time I’m trying to record a sound and playback.

Some workaround suggested steps are:

  1. Copy the c:\windows \System32\sndrec32.exe file from a Windows XP to Vista and run as Administrator.
  2. Right-Click the file and choose Run as Administrator.
Please don’t do that, it doesn’t work. I will suggest you to get any new recording software. I haven’t tried out any yet. If you have used any good one, please share.

12 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, not that XP sound recorder was useful at all. I always had to use third party software to record voice or music.

ChampDog said...

Yes, I agree with you but it still have the basic stuff enough for you to do some basic recording (except for the recording time limitation - it really sucks). Thanks for the comment.

Anonymous said...

I think Xp recorder for basic record like record your personal KTV(LOL). For those who really record for public usage, I would suggest other softwares too.

Nice work dude.

ChampDog said...

Ya, that's right. I used to record my own KTV too. Hahaha...

Mynameisabraham said...

Try audacity, http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
I've used it on linux machine and it worked fine, plus its free.

Mynameisabraham said...

Here's something you guys might find useful. The video basically explains how to activate the hidden features in the volume control and record from the stereo mixer.

http://www.demondigital.com/tutorials/vista_recording_sources.html

It works with Sound Recorder but the volume is low, I recommend using audacity or whatever program you like to boost the volume.

Anonymous said...

Yeah i tried audacity and i tried using it to create my ringtones, like i did on sound recorder for xp, but i can only cut once and i need to cut at least twice to cut it down and get the part i want for the ringtone. I might be doing something wrong but i tried and tried and i cant figure it out :(

ChampDog said...

Thanks for the recommendation. It looks like audacity is pretty good tool. Gonna try that later on when I want to record my KTV again. :)

I can't seem to load the "enable vista recording hidden feature" page. As you said, perhaps other software such as audacity will still be better. I can't wait to test it out. :D

Mynameisabraham said...

if anyone else is having trouble with seeing the video here is the summary:

1.right click on your volume control
2.select recording devices
3.right-click anywhere within the window (inside the space with the scroll bar)
4.select "show disabled devices"
5.righ-click "stereo mixer" or whatever you would rather use
6.select enable
7.Click "OK"

and that should let you record whatever comes out of your speakers.

ChampDog said...

@abe
I'm not sure what this is and I have tried recording anything come out from my speaker with and without the steps that you mentioned and there are no differences.

Anonymous said...

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i thin xp vista do not have a very bad sound i think it is good


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