Record Wave Audio Output on Vista

If you have, like me, tried to record audio output from your sound card on a Vista system, you would be so disappointed to see the not-so-helpful error dialog box below when you launch Windows Sound Recorder.

Apart from saying that an audio recording device cannot be found, the message doesn't help you in any way to get the job done. In fact, it made me think that it's not even possible to do that same thing (that I've been doing in XP for ages) on Vista.

Well...this is not really impossible. Windows Vista just, by default, disables and hides the Stereo Mix recoding device on your sound card. All you need to do is to enable the Stereo Mix and you can start recording wave output from any source.

To enable this device, go to Control Panel > Sound > Recording tab. Right-click and select Show Disabled Devices.

Select Stereo Mix and click Properties. Select Use this device in the Device usage drop-down box.

Click OK to close all the windows.

Now re-launch Windows Sound Recorder and you will see the screen below.

Record some audio and you will get an output file in wma format. There's only one format to choose from and you cannot save it as a wav file so that you can later convert it to an mp3 format. If you need more capabilities, consider some third-party audio recoding applications.