Solved Restart to finish setting up Realtek Audio

Hi, all.

I hope you're well.
I unplugged my headphones from my laptop a few days ago to use them with my tablet.
I then plugged the headphones back into my laptop with the 3.5mm Jack Extension Cable that I use.
Since then, I get a message on startup that my computer needs to be restarted to finish setting up Realtek Audio.
I can dismiss the message, but I would like to understand why this has suddenly started happening.

Many thanks,

Casey

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Unplug the headphone. Do you hear sound from your speakers?

It appears your laptop is in an update loop, possibly caused by windows update updating your Realtek driver. Things to try:

run both windows update and playing audio troubleshooters. settings>system>troubleshoot>other troubleshooters>

Go to control panel> device manager>expand sound> right click on Realtek Audio, select properties. Attempt to rollback driver. If you are unable to do so, right click on Realtek again and select uninstall. Restart. If there is a valid driver installed Windows will reinstall your sound. If there is no valid driver installed go to your OEM and download the sound driver for your device or run windows update to see if it will locate a driver..

Thanks, glasskuter.
I checked Device Manager, and couldn't rollback the the driver.
I was about to uninstall when Device Manager recognised a change to my settings.
I followed the instruction to restart, and then the problem disappeared.
My preferred solution - nice and easy.

Best wishes,

Casey

CaseyBee said:

followed the instruction to restart,

Click to expand...

I'm shaking my head here. In your first post you said

CaseyBee said:

Since then, I get a message on startup that my computer needs to be restarted

Click to expand...

You said you had been seeing the message for several days which led me to believe the message would come back after a restart.. Did you not restart when it originally told you to?? When the system tells you to restart, you restart.

I restarted initially, but the message reappeared.
It was an Action Center notification which said a restart was required, but didn't give the Restart Now option I'm used to with Windows updates.
For some reason going into Device Manager first triggered a message that a change had been detected, and prompted a restart with a Restart Now option.
That was what I did, and the problem resolved.