Rollup 1 (KB826939) stops sound, but easy fix

[Guest]

On installing Rollup 1 (KB826939) sounds won't play on my Amilo M laptop and the loudspeaker icon disappears. Device manager display this as the device "Intel(r) AC'97 Audio Controller" (PCI bus 0, device 0, function 1) being unable to start.

The fix for this is simple. Uninstall the KB826939 Rollup and visit Windowsupdate again to download individual security patches as needed, but stay away from non-critical patches that you don't really need.

Speculating on the causes, I installed KB826939 after two new security patches had been installed, but before the machine had been restarted after their installment. But you'd think more people had come across the problem then, so my guess is it's a hardware-dependent bug.

 

[Guest]

The problem will pop up again if the machine is given a "warm" restart. Turning the machine off completely will let the sound-device start correctly.

Although the problem popped up for the first time after installing the new security patches, the link between them is not as clear as I first thought.