XPS 8940, stop Dell MaxxAudio Pro from installing?

Is Waves getting installed automatically via Windows Update?

Maybe you can try to hide Waves updates using the Microsoft tool or by using either Windows Group Policy Editor, if you have Win 11 Pro, or by editing the Registry if you have Win 11 Home, as described here.

Can you tell us exactly how Waves is "breaking" your digital mic setup? When Waves is installed and is being launched at every boot, it wants you to be at the desktop before you plug in any new device for the very first time.

If you plug in a new device for first time with PC off, Waves frequently incorrectly identifies the new device, leading to annoying problems...

Thank you Ron!  

Right after Windows 11 starts for the first time a series of apps just begin to appear.  They all fall directly under the banner of "Microsoft Store" in the notification pane.  I am going to try and really quickly go into the updates and see if I can stop it.  It's a race against the clock.

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@RoHe wrote:

Can you tell us exactly how Waves is "breaking" your digital mic setup? When Waves is installed and is being launched at every boot, it wants you to be at the desktop before you plug in any new device for the very first time.

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Yes.  The digital mic system (receiver connected via USB-C) has 2 wireless mics and they come into the PC as stereo.  One mic is on the left channel and the other mic is on the right.  After Windows automatically install Maxxaudio the Dell ignores all audio from the second mic.  It still records stereo but both channels are now just the first mic and even if I try combining the channels on the digital receiver I can only get one mic being recorded, doubled. It literally makes the mic setup useless. I found that it works exactly as intended on a Mac as well as other Windows PCs but not on this Dell.  After a lot of frustration and hours of troubleshooting I figured it had something to do with a package associated with the Dell.  I found that immediately after a fresh Windows install it works.  Then just as Windows automatically installs the Maxxaudio package, it promptly breaks.   I've tried removing Maxxaudio and rolling back the drivers but that doesn't fix it.  Once it's broken, it seems to stay broken until I wipe the PC and start over ... 🫤

I just disabled waves from the start up manager and then disabled the Waves services.

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@kras1 wrote:

I just disabled waves from the start up manager and then disabled the Waves services.

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Unfortunately once it installs it does something to break the audio drivers.  Even if I go through the full uninstall process and delete every trace of it I can find it doesn't fix the problem.  The only way I can get the audio to work correctly is to stop it from ever installing.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

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@RoHe wrote:

FWIW, some users with various issues with Waves have simply installed an add-in PCI-e sound card that doesn't use Waves, and then disabled Realtek Audio. That might be another way to stop Waves from getting installed....

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THANK YOU!

Ultimately that's what it came down to.  I used the utility you suggested and a few other settings I read about but Windows still kept installing it no matter how hard I tried to block it. The thing that solved the problem was completely disabling built-in audio in the BIOS and installing Windows 11 again.  This time it finally didn't try to install Maxxaudio and my microphones actually work!  I really wish Dell would figure out a better solution, this software is really terrible.  All the problems with this and the hours I spent trying to fix it actually made me regret buying a Dell.  I felt like I had no control over this hardware at all.  I am thankful for community help with this problem though, so thank you.

@LChackr  Glad you found a solution.

Dumb question: Does "installing Windows" mean doing a clean install or just doing a Reset to Dell's factory image?

This is probably Microsoft's fault and here's a way to stop Microsoft Store from installing unwanted apps automatically. No promises...

After you make those changes, you might be able to re-enable Realtek audio in BIOS again and not get Waves force-installed.

Just in case, you may want to image the boot drive after you make those changes, but before you re-enable Realtek, so you don't have to install Win 11 all over again from the beginning.

Macrium Reflect (free) is a good way to image the boot drive. Save the image on either an internal data drive or on an external USB drive.  Be sure to use Macrium to create the bootable USB stick you'll need to restore a saved image.

And here's another thought...

If Waves gets installed with Realtek re-enabled, try using Revo Uninstaller (free) to clean it out thoroughly. Click the Windows Apps button on the Revo toolbar to make Waves visible. Then let Revo uninstall it (tell Revo to set a System Restore point before it does anything). 

When it's done, PC may ask to reboot, but select "Later", and Revo will show you any leftovers in bold that have to be manually selected so Revo can delete them. Then reboot. 

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@RoHe wrote:

Dumb question: Does "installing Windows" mean doing a clean install or just doing a Reset to Dell's factory image?

I was performing a clean install from a bootable USB drive I created using the official Microsoft utility.

I had already replaced the SSD in my XPS with a faster NVME drive so the original Dell image gone.  I build custom PCs from time to time and was taken by surprise at the avalanche of software that just appeared as soon as I installed Windows.  I decided to take a leap and buy my first-ever pre-built at a time when GPUs were hard to come by and this was a guaranteed non-scalper way to get one.  I really needed a GPU for video encoding.  I didn't anticipate that  even installing Windows on a blank drive would result in a ton of software I didn't chose to get installed.  I tried a ton of stuff, ranging from registry keys, the toggle you suggested, the troubleshooter tool to block updates, disabling driver installation in Device Manager, everything that I could find online.  It all just kept coming the instant I connected to the Internet.  

I get that for a novice this can be a benefit but I know what I am doing and should be allowed to chose what gets installed, Microsoft ...

I don't ever intend to enable Realtek again.  It's not worth the risk.  I mostly just used onboard audio for testing and sound checks anyway.  I'll happily use a USB audio controller for that in the future if it means I don't have to worry about Maxxaudio again.

I will take your suggestion and look into Macrium Reflect to make a backup once I get everything configured again.  Hopefully a BIOS update doesn't re-enable audio or something.  UGH.

Thanks again for all your help.  You are awesome

Thanks for all the details, and glad I could help. I pinged my Dell contacts about Waves auto-installing from the MS Store, without permission. Don't know what/anything they can do about that...

You might want to consider an add-in PCI-e audio card which may give better performance than a USB audio controller. There are a couple of threads about PCI-e sound cards that work in XPS 8940 so search for them.

 Good luck, this has been an ongoing issue for my company with USB headsets being used with our VoIP phone system. Looking online shows several years of ignored issues from Realtek and Dell. When I switched to a different laptop manufacturer that did not use Maxx audio, we have not had one problem since that point. 

I tried both of those and they didn't work.  I had to do it with all networking disabled but as soon as I plugged the Ethernet cable into the PC it installed MaxxAudio even with those settings in place.  I tried everything to disable it but nothing worked except actually turning audio off in BIOS.  

Sorry for the late reply but I also tried to install a SoundBlaster PCIe card but there was a huge amount of noise because it was too close to the GPU.  That was the only slot I could populate so I had no other choice in terms of placement.  I ultimately had to settle for no onboard audio or a USB dongle.  It's unfortunate.

I also learned in this process that other audio products have seen similar problems caused by MaxxAudio.  If this is how things work it will seriously stop me from buying a Dell in the future.  I've been mostly happy with everything else but this particular issue hurts.  It's crazy that there is no option to stop it.  Nevermind that such a horrible and buggy software package is universally installed.

Has anyone tried to block Waves from being force-installed from the MS Store by blocking driver updates via Windows Update?  This can be done either by using the Group Policy Editor (available in Pro versions of Win 10 or 11), or by editing the Registry. Read more here.

Don't know if this will stop Waves from being installed, but it will block all other driver updates. So that's a trade-off to consider...

Another  possible option might be to type: Advanced system settings in Start>Search. Click Advanced System Settings on the results list.

Now click Hardware tab. Click Device Installation Settings button. On that screen, change the setting to NO, save the change, and reboot PC.

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@mqmora wrote:

 Good luck, this has been an ongoing issue for my company with USB headsets being used with our VoIP phone system. Looking online shows several years of ignored issues from Realtek and Dell. When I switched to a different laptop manufacturer that did not use Maxx audio, we have not had one problem since that point. 

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Yeah.  I found out about other audio products that MaxxAudio breaks as well.  I told the company support reps my solution and it might come down to them just saying avoid Dell computers over this.