Re: SRS Audio Sandbox 1.9.0.4 With USB Soundcard Support 64 Bit
Денис Окунев
As some of you may know, Microsoft Hyper-V doesn't emulate a virtual audio device, meaning a blind person is locked out of using it. I'd really like Microsoft to add audio support, as I think it could be very beneficial for blind server admins and others who want to use Hyper-V. I've created feedback concerning this in Microsoft's Feedback Hub, and would love if we could come together as a community to put enough pressure on Microsoft to make this a reality. I never thought they'd make the Windows Recovery Environment talk, but here we are, so it just goes to show you never know what the future holds. Here's the link to my feedback, and I'd encourage everyone to vote and comment on it.
Would VB audio cable help you? You can route audio through that, as opposed to using your internal sound card for stuff. But maybe you wouldn't be able to use it with a server or something. The link is here.
-audio.com/Cable/
While this might work, it's Windows specific, and requires you get someone to help you install and configure it. All I want is for Hyper-V to emulate a soundcard so we get audio immediately. This would make it possible to install Windows using Narrator, or Linux using Orca/Speakup.
Also the accessibility when it comes to the feedback hub isn't the best, links, you can't seam to read comments unless you mes around with NVDA and the numbpad thing, I forget what it's called at the moment.
You have to be a member of the Windows insider program it seems. I think it's an early access thing? I tried to open the link when signed into my Microsoft account, it said my account isn't allowed to access it or something.Unless I'm very much mistaken, Chris is referring to some sort of system where you connect to a remote server, so someone else's computer or network, and you can get speech while on that server. Sorry Chris if I've misunderstood.
Sorry for any confusion, I thought more people would know what this is. Hyper-V is basically Microsoft's hypervisor software to run virtual machines, just like VMware Player/Workstation for Windows, or Fusion for Mac. It was originally meant for server use on Windows Server 2008, hence why sound wasn't prioritized. However, it made its way into Windows 8 Pro and later, so it really should have sound support. Besides, blind people can and want to use servers. All I want is sound support on the host when running virtual machines. You can get audio working if you use Remote Desktop to connect over the network, but this requires you get someone with sight to configure it for you.
I'm not sure if you have to join the Windows Insider program to post feedback, but this seems very likely. Fortunately, it's free to join your Microsoft account to the program, and you don't necessarily have to install the Insider builds. I'm not aware of any other channels to bring this to Microsoft's attention, hence why I use Feedback Hub. I thought we could come together as a community and make Microsoft prioritize this issue, but maybe I'm the only one that cares?
Hi Chris,
I looked into the Windows Insider program, and it looks a bit long-winded to be honest. I know I wouldn't have to download stuff, but I don't want to get emails about new stuff I probably wouldn't be interested in trying. And according to the terms and conditions etc. that's what would happen. Have you tried asking on audiogames.net on the off topic room forum? There are developers and stuff there who probably know about virtual machines etc. That's probably one of the best places to ask if you want to find people with similar knowledge and requirements to yours. There are a couple of not very active subreddits for blind users interested in cyber security and programming. I don't know what they're called, but I read about them on the /r/Blind sub. I wouldn't recommend that particular sub for asking tech questions, you usually get the minimal amount of answers there. What about Facebook groups or telegram channels? Maybe you've tried all these avenues already. And have you ever tried Remote Incident Manager (RIM) from Pneuma Solutions?
You have to subscribe to it, but I'm wondering if you could do something with that. I heard about it on the Double Tap podcast. Pneuma solutions seems to have a few things for remote stuff. Sorry I can't be of more help.
@Brad, No this would be an absolute game changer for any of us in the IT field or just wanting to learn linux without the need to dabble with VMware, virtualbox or some other online virtual machine. I ran into this problem just trying to set up the windows subsystem for Linux, apparently there are workarounds but they require sighted assistance which obviously isn't always available. Not only that but they require sighted assistance from a fairly advanced computer user, even harder to come by. This is a massive problem, I'll be adding my vote to the mix.
But I agree that it's an ugly oversight, especially now that ESXI is no longer freely available. Realistically this is the only option available now, unless you're happy to put up with the limitations of Workstation like requiring a UI, not being able to easily start up VMs with the system and no support for memory ballooning. So it would be great for Windows users to get this.
But it's very unfortunate. Really the only other option I can think of is scripting the guest install with an answer file to enable RDP. Either that or use Workstation to prep the VM before transferring it to Hyper-V. But neither option is realistically available for common situations like using existing VMs or cloud provider images. This is what happens when blind people are out of the loop. Such a shame ESXI is basically over.
Blind people can and do want to use servers. Besides, this has moved to consumer versions of Windows, so server usage isn't the only thing it's good for anymore. Oh well, we'll find out what the future brings. Change does happen, even if that change doesn't happen as quickly as we might want it to. I wish more people cared about this. I'd think equal access to information would be a priority for everyone.
re: my sound card
Are you referring to the integrated audio chipset (Realtek ALC889)? As with the LAN, if you're trying to make the Gigabyte driver work, your better bet may be the Realtek website drivers. I use R.274. I notice they also have an older one (A.4.06), which I have never tried.
Things are working quite well and I once again tried PAE. It detects all memory but again, the sound card only makes a tick sound in place of actual sound. If I try to play a music file, it sort of sounds like a jack hammer. lol
You may be able to use the last XP drivers but the likelihood of success is very low because XP x86 was never made with large memory addresses (>4 GB) in mind. Server 2003 x86 drivers would be a good bet (because they have to deal with large memory addresses), if they existed, which they don't seem to being a consumer-grade component.
The Realtek drivers probably work better with PAE because their onboard audio is included in workstation (though probably not server) boards where one may consider OSes that do fully support PAE. Or maybe the driver developers were just open-minded.
I'll have to research into that. But I ended up having to reinstall because "something" corrupted my last Win2000 install so badly that I couldn't even get the recovery console to find it. So I dunno what happened. But I decided to not install the X-Fi card drivers this time and just go ahead and install the Realtek drivers. This is what I ended up with.
Now some more interesting follies. I stayed away from some of the later versions of Extended Core because videoprt.sys was flawed and would not allow for dual monitors to work, this was especially true in version 16a. For fun, I downloaded version 16d, which Blackwingcat only released in Japanese for some reason, and opened it up to poke in the files. I took notice that videoprt.sys was slightly newer in this release and language neutral. So I replaced the file included in 16a with the one in 16d and reinstalled the 16a package. Low and behold, dual monitors work. It was that single flawed file that actually was updated but not for an English release that prevents dual monitors from working. Then again, how many others but me here use dual monitors on Windows 2000?
I've seen this USB problem mentioned before, and once again, I ask: How does your Windows 2000 even have any references to "Intel C610/X99 series chipset" or "Z68" or "X79" or X58" even? Unless you are using a modified installation source or are running an Intel Chipset INF update after installation these should not exist!
The Intel Chipset INF updates include garbage do-nothing INF files for later Intel USB2 controllers under 2K (and for Intel USB3 controllers under XP). All these files do is name the controller with it's proper Intel designation, and link back to 2K's USB.INF, but use the UHCI (USB1.0) install section instead of loading a proper USB2 (EHCI) driver. They do NOT properly link to a USB2 driver (.SYS file). (Examine the [USB_2K.NT] (2K) install section versus the [USB2.NT] (XP) section in one of these Intel USB files, I used "patusb.inf" for example.) However, since these Intel INF files are dated newer than any existing USB.INF file under 2K, 2K chooses these garbage files by default and complains if you want to use the older-dated standard driver.
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