Recently did a clean install of Windows 11 onto a test laptop, and today I connected it via Bluetooth to a very nice but older set of bookshelf speakers.
Turned on my music, and it was too loud for my taste, so I did what we all do, turned down the volume in Windows . . . and . . . no change! Volume slider moves back and forth just fine, it’s not grayed out or anything, it just doesn’t lower (or raise) the volume at the speaker.
Hmm, thought I, that’s very strange and annoying.
Bit of digging for an answer, and thought I would share the fix here for those that might run into this issue.
It’s a feature that was actually added to Windows 10 1803 called Absolute Volume, and it’s supposed to give us more granular control over volume over Bluetooth – but it breaks volume control completely on older wireless hardware.
Note: New generation Bluetooth speakers and headphones don’t have this problem, only do this if you have an older set of speakers/headphones that don’t adjust volume from Windows 10 or 11 when expected.
To disable the Absolute Volume feature, and restore volume control to older Bluetooth audio devices:
Open a CMD prompt as Administrator and paste the following code and press enter:
reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Bluetooth\Audio\AVRCP\CT /v DisableAbsoluteVolume /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
If you decide you want the feature back, you can re-enable Absolute Volume by pasting this code into a CMD prompt as Administrator:
reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Bluetooth\Audio\AVRCP\CT /v DisableAbsoluteVolume /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
A reboot is required for the change to take effect.
Now enjoy your music at the volume level you prefer!
~ Group "Weekend" ~
