Realtek Audio Drivers fix for Windows XP SP3

A friend of mine mine once decided to put his old Windows XP machine back into action. He was previously running Service Pack 2 but after upgrading to Service Pack 3, he realized that he did not have any audio even though the drivers were installed.

Uninstalling and re-installing the drivers also wouldn't help as the problem would still persist and he realised this issue had something to do with upgrading to Service Pack 3. After some time, he finally came up with a solution and now I am going to share the solution with you, the readers.

If you happen to experience issues with getting audio from your Realtek AC'97 in Windows XP Service Pack 3, this post will save you hours of trying.

Installing Realtek AC'97 drivers succesfully on SP3

1. Before we begin with the fix, you first need to make sure that you have uninstalled your sound driver. You can do that from your Device Manager.
2. Once you have uninstalled your sound driver go to your Start Menu, click on Run and type in regedit.exe
3. Inside your registry, head into the location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows\ and change the CSDVersion value to 200. Now restart your computer.
4. Download the kb888111xpsp2.exe patch file and install it, then install your sound driver again. Once again, restart your computer.
5. Now again, head into the location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows\ and change the CSDVersion value back to 300.

You should now have your sound back on your computer.