Sound options not appearing

[Maarsch]

Hello everyone,

Since today I can no longer get the "Manage audio devices" window or "Change system sounds" window from the control panel to appear, nor will "playback devices" from right-clicking on the speaker icon on the task bar get me this screen.
So pretty much the "Sound" options are not available.

And then 3.5 minutes later I will have it will magically appear.

While this is a fairly new computer it's been running fine for a bit. Only change yesterday: I installed Office 2010.
I went through the update history and pretty much everything is office related.
I updated graphics drivers.
I shouted abuse at the computer.

And now I'm asking for help.
Anyone know what is causing this?

 

[house70]

Hi, check this out:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945011

Also, this:
http://winhlp.com/node/16?cl=1#comment-2246

 

[Maarsch]

The system icons are there, they just don't prompt a response till 3.5 minutes later.

Or at least they did. When I started the computer up this morning it worked fine again.
Perhaps the >10 seconds of not being active was the key because reboots hadn't helped.
If it comes back I'll mention it.

 

[Maarsch]

It's returned and a reboot got rid of it.

Still odd that it appears in the first place though.