realtek hd audio driver disappeared from my latitude e5550 running win

hi,
i don't use audio much so i am not exactly sure which patch, but after one of the creator updates a red X appeared next to the speaker icon on my notification bar. windows says "no audio output device is installed" when i hover over the speaker icon. i looked in device manager and saw that the realtek hd audio driver was gone and 2 Microsoft HDAC drivers were shown with warnings.
device status was:
Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

Object Name not found.
i told windows to update the driver and rebooted. no change. uninstalled and booted, not fixed. i ran the dell install package,Audio_Driver_DDG39_WN32_6.0.1.6111_A06.EXE, and it executed but after reboot, no change. same thing with the realtek driver package.

i used hdwwiz and pointed to a folder in the extracted dell package that contained the .inf files and the install fails. from looking on google it seems there are lots of problems with win 10 and realtek.
i don't want to reinstall windows, it would take a lot of time to get my laptop back to where it is now and it could just end up the same way.
anybody have any suggestions? thank you.

i will try rolling back the device with warning. i already tried installing the correct dell audio driver. nothing happened.

Here is the link to the correct driver download from the Dell site for your Latitude.
It should install without problems and remove the "HIgh Definition Audio Controller" which is the Windows installed generic, basic function, sound driver. Normally, Windows will install the correct driver but didn't on yours.

Support for Latitude E5550/5550 | Drivers downloads | Dell US

i have tried to load that driver with that dell package. seems to run normally, but after re-boot no change.

Post a Screenshot of the Device Manager, Sound, Video and Game Controllers section.

For example, here is mine (it was taken when I had Win 7 but its the same for Win 10).

hi,

i found out why my realtek install is failing.

following clip is from c:\windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log. it is the install for the dell audio driver package.


SPFQOPERATION_ABORT (C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\wdmaudio.inf_amd64_d971d3ff1aaf7bdb\drmk.sys).


drmk.sys is not in that folder, i checked.


it is not anywhere on my c: drive. where can i get it? thanks

Try the driver direct from Realtek.
Realtek