VirtualBox - no sound on Guest Win10

Question

Recently I installed VirtualBox 6.1 on my MacBook Air and installed Windows 10 on it (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/), but somehow the sound on my guest Win10 is not working. I managed to dig for some info and found out that I need to install (https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/pc-audio-codecs-ac-97-audio-codecs-software) but it does not work. Could anybody help me with this one?

EDIT: I get the error when I hover over the sound icon: "no audio output device is installed"

Answer 1

I tried the route in the most upvoted answer but couldn't get Win10 to install the AC97 driver. For me the solution was much simpler: select Audio Controller "Intel HD Audio" in the virtual machine settings (and leave Host Audio Driver to whatever the default was, in my case "Pulse Audio"). Enable Audio Output checked of course, and it should just work like the machine has a sound card.

Crackling is still there even with the stuff about turning off enhancements and exclusivity, but I think that's not going away since I'm trying to play 1080p video and I don't think the virtual machine has quite the kind of video hardware access (and memory allocation) that it needs to play this level of content perfectly smoothly.

Answer 2

Fixing the sound on guest windows 10 where the host is Linux / Mac

• Open the settings for your Windows 10 machine inside of virtualbox
• Go to Audio > Host Audio Driver, change to "ALSA Audio Driver"
• Go to Audio > Audio Controller, change to "ICH AC97"
• Enable Test Mode on Windows 10 and reboot machine.
• Download and install the Realtek driver for Vista/Win7 (32/64 bits) Driver only (ZIP file) from here and reboot your Windows 10 machine.
• Disable test mode from the link in 4th step then reboot your Windows 10 machine.

---

In case you still have a crackling / popping sound

• In the task bar, right click on the sound icon and choose playback devices
• Double click on Speakers
• Select the Advanced Tab
• Set the Default Format to 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality)
• In the Exclusive Mode, Uncheck the Allow applications... etc
• Select the Enhancement Tab
• Check the Disable all sound effects
• Make sure you click apply then OK

The crackling sound would immediately disappear but you could reboot just to verify.