FIX: Dolby Atmos not working in Windows 10

by Aleksandar Ognjanovic

Troubleshooting Expert

Last update:March 9, 2021

Affiliate Disclosure

---

When you think about sound effects, you think of Dolby. That is universally available and even more so since they started implementing their surround sound software and hardware in consumer products, like home theaters and smartphones.

Also, Windows 10 users can try out (and later buy) Dolby Atmos supporting software for headphones and home sound systems.

However, the problem is that there’s no option to do so or they’re unable to get Dolby Atmos (or Spatial sound in general which includes Windows Sonic as well) to work.

What’s Dolby Atmos and Spatial sound in Windows 10 and how it works? As you might already know, the sound is usually distributed through channels.

But this new technology focuses on 3D points and grants 360° sound output to improve listeners experience.

Even with the cheapest headphones, with the adapted-multimedia content (movies, games, and videos), you should enjoy a dramatically better surround sound.

For the time being, it supports only headphones, buds, and earphones in Windows 10, but you can use a Dolby home theater for the best results.

Nonetheless, we need to make it work in the first place. For the sole purpose of helping our readers in distress, we provided the best-suited solutions below.

Make sure to check them out and, hopefully, we’ll make Dolby Atmos and Spatial sound work as it’s intended.

How do I enable Dolby Atmos on Windows 10?

1. Update sound drivers
2. Rollback sound drivers
3. Run the built-in sound troubleshooter
4. Enable Exclusive mode options
5. Run downloadable troubleshooter
6. Reconfigure Dolby Atmos for your device or try Sonic
7. Update Windows

1. Update sound drivers

1. Right-click on the Start menu and open Device Manager.
2. Expand the Sound, video, and game controllers section.
3. Right-click both onboard sound device and third-party device and Update drivers.
4. Restart your PC.
5. Right-click on the Sound icon in the Notification area and select Spatial Sound (Dolby Atmos for Headphones). If you haven’t configured it already, follow the instructions to do so.
6. Play supported content and look (listen) for changes.

Run a System Scan to discover potential errors

Download Restoro
PC Repair Tool

Click Start Scan to find Windows issues.

Click Repair All to fix issues with Patented Technologies.

Run a PC Scan with Restoro Repair Tool to find errors causing security problems and slowdowns. After the scan is complete, the repair process will replace damaged files with fresh Windows files and components.

Sound drivers are the primary reason why things go south. As you might’ve known, there are usually the 2 sound devices with their respective roles and supporting drivers.

The onboard sound device and the third-party device. Windows 10 is well-known for automatically administered driver updates and those are frequently making things worse.

Namely, it seems that some iterations of both the onboard sound device and the third-party device (Realtek, VIA, ATI) won’t work as intended with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Sound.

So, the first thing is to try and update your sound driver and try enabling Dolby Atmos (Spatial sound) later on.

If you’re not sure how to do so on your Windows 10, make sure you install an automated solution that can take care of this task for you.

If you are a gamer, photo/video producer, or you deal daily with any kind of intensive visual workflows then you already know the importance of your graphics card (GPU). To make sure that everything goes smoothly and avoid any kind of GPU driver errors, be sure to use a complete driver update assistant that will solve your problems with just a couple of clicks, and we strongly recommend DriverFix. Follow these easy steps to safely update your drivers:

1. Download and install DriverFix.
2. Launch the software.
3. Wait for DriverFix to detect all your faulty drivers.
4. The application will now show you all the drivers that have issues, and you just need to select the ones you’d liked fixed.
5. Wait for the app to download and install the newest drivers.
6. Restart your PC for the changes to take effect.

DriverFix

Keep you GPU on the peaks of their performance without worrying about its drivers.

Free trial Visit website

Disclaimer: this program needs to be upgraded from the free version in order to perform some specific actions.

---

2. Rollback sound drivers/stick with native drivers

1. Right-click Start and open Device Manager from the Power User menu.
2. Expand the Sound, video, and game controllers section.
3. Right-click both devices, respectively, and open Properties.
4. Under the Driver tab, click Roll Back driver.
5. If that option isn’t available, get back and right-click on the third-party sound device and uninstall it.
6. Restart your PC and re-enable Spatial sound.

If the first step was of no help whatsoever, we recommend a diametrally opposite approach. In fact, the latest driver iteration might not exclusively be the best-suited for the job.

Firstly, you can try and rollback the driver on all sound devices and look for changes.

If you roll back your driver and that fixes the problem, you’ll have to prevent Windows from automatically updating it in the future. To do that, follow the easy steps from this nifty guide.

If that doesn’t hold up, you should completely disable the third-party sound device and stick with the onboard sound device solely.

Still having issues? Fix them with this tool:

1. Download this PC Repair Tool rated Great on TrustPilot.com (download starts on this page).
2. Click Start Scan to find Windows issues that could be causing PC problems.
3. Click Repair All to fix issues with Patented Technologies (Exclusive Discount for our readers).

Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.