XPS 8960, ready to get rid of MaxAudio Pro

If you've disabled it with "no consequences", just leave it disabled, rather than uninstalling it.

FWIW, Waves MaxxAudio Pro is the primary audio controller app for the Realtek Audio hardware in your PC. I'd be surprised if the audio doesn't sound poorly without Waves running.

If you decide to uninstall it, you can always download/re-install it from here.  Or, if the linked version 5.0.59.0 is newer than the one installed, you may want to update to the latest...

@RoHe​ 

I appreciate your advice. I decided to uninstall MaxAudio Pro. It wasn't so easy. The uninstall routine removed the user interface, but left behind 3 executables that had to be removed manually - one of them in Safe Mode.

The application is finally moved, although two services remain, which I disabled.

If I was a gamer, or involved with other applications that use sophisticated audio, I would not have done this. But all I do with sound is play music and listen to the soundtrack in movies, and in my testing so far, both sound just as good as when MaxAudio Pro was installed, and the sound controls in my media players work well. So for my use cases, mission accomplished.

If I come to regret doing this in the future, I'm not too proud to let people know about it.

This is what is referred to as premium sound for windows.

At some point in Win10, MS minimized the sound drivers and now use an app to control the extra features (equalizer, etc).

I had some fun with this at one point when using the Dell image but once I reloaded a fresh Win11, it has been behaving.

Some apps are better than others at this point in time but I hope this will improve as things mature.

I guess I shouldn't be surprized as I have been fairly unimpressed with most apps (especially phone apps).

I think the bar is set very low compared to old school programming these days even if there are advances in features and control.

I look at my installed Realtek software and notice it shows up 2x so even now it might not be 100%.

As long as you are still using Realtek audio driver, Waves MaxxAudio Pro will find its way to reinstall itself.  For a permanent solution, you may consider to change audio driver to Microsoft High Definition Audio driver and that will keep Waves out of your system for good.

On other hand, you could just leave the MaxxAudio Pro interface alone and just turn off all the enhancements.

"This is what is referred to as premium sound for windows."

True - but also amusing. No amount of software can make media sound better than what the speakers or headphones/earphones are capable of producing.

Each of my media players has its own audio software, and if that's not enough, my earbuds and my speakers have their own audio software. Yet another audio app, particularly one with no knowledge of the output capabilities of my hardware, won't add anything and could conflict with existing software.

Add to that all the CPU that my copy of Waves used, and that it inserted itself into Windows startup and made itself hard to uninstall. I'm quite comfortable with my decision.

@Chino de Oro​ 

For the OP, that's probably an option but the equalizer for many users is a must have.

There are alternatives though.

Does anybody know why MaxAudioPro would have two different programs listed (but not in the main installed program area)?

I'm not sure what is normal but either option seems exactly the same when I run them.

In the Windows Start menu, the green shortcut links to an executable with the same icon. This shortcut goes away when the app is uninstalled, but the executable remains.

The blue shortcut doesn't link to the executable with the same icon, or to any other executable. That shortcut and the blue executable remain after the app is uninstalled. A third executable, with a black icon, also remains after the app is uninstalled.

Moreover, the executable with the blue icon still starts with Windows, even after Waves is uninstalled, and cannot be disabled in the usual way.

To finally rid myself of this bloatware, I had to manually delete the three executables (green, blue and black) after taking ownership. Even then, the blue executable can only be removed in Safe Mode.

What remains after all this are two Waves services, which I manually disabled. I'm going to guess that the blue Start menu shortcut is somehow linked to one or both of the services.

It looks like the blue/white icon is the service app located in the system32/drivers area.

The black/blue icon is a MS store app it seems.

I hope it's not like MS Teams where you can install Office but Windows is just going to give you the MS store Teams app too which is totally unrelated to the Office Teams.

I mean, that's not going to confuse end users. /s

<Profanity is never allowed on our Forum. Read the Forum Code of Conduct. DELL-Admin> happed to MS....no more common sense?

Very messy but since it's working fine, no need to fiddle but one of these days..lol.

Profanity? Wow....

Next time try using Revo Uninstaller (free) to remove an app, and all its "leftovers".

Be sure to allow Revo to set a System Restore point before uninstalling anything.

@RoHe​ 

Your advice is good (as usual) but in this case, Revo Uninstaller Pro left much of MaxAudio Waves behind.

Did it show you the Waves leftovers in bold on various screens after the uninstall was completed and did you select all of them for deletion?

Well, many of my posts fell victim to a profile problem on this site getting me confused with a mod but oh well.

Since I no longer rely on those Realtek drivers and use nVidia's HD audio, it's still good to know how to clean these up.

Well we can't disable Realtek in the BIOS (that's sad) but I think most of the users on here just want to clean up the Waves portion.

I will do some digging because I can't hurt my sound now by playing with the Realtek stuff. :P

@RoHe​ well well well, let me say it for you, i just unpluged, and pluged my headset today and maxx audio turned on, not it sounds like a Bass Bosted music on youtube and with huge echo, i cant even watch anything

Don't settle for less: :)