If you are a dedicated webcam user and your webcam has suddenly stopped working, do check out these helpful and working solutions those are compatible with Windows 10 PC. There can be a huge amount of reasons, why your webcam is not working with Windows 10. No matter whether you have a faulty dedicated webcam or integrated webcam in your laptop, and you want to fix it as soon as possible, you might have to go through all these following solutions. Some of them solutions are mainly for Windows 10. However, you might be able to try them on Windows 7/8/8.1 as well.

Fix Webcam Not Working Problem on Windows 10

As mentioned earlier, you need to find out the problem. Otherwise, you cannot fix the issue at first attempt. In case, you are not getting the source of the problem; you can follow the following tutorials one by one.

1. Use Webcam with Another Computer

This is quite important to check if your webcam is working properly or not. There are many people, who tried a lot of tutorials to use the webcam but the problem lies in their webcam itself. In that case, no matter what you do, you will end up getting the same problem continuously. If your webcam is not working on its own, you can change multiple things in your PC, but you cannot fix the issue. Therefore, before doing anything on your computer, do check whether the webcam is in working condition or not. To do so, you can use the webcam with another computer. If the webcam is working fine, you need to follow the following tutorials. If the webcam isn’t working on the second computer, this is the time you need to replace your webcam with a new one.

2. Try A Different USB Port

The vast majority of webcams work with wire, and you need to connect your webcam with your PC via a USB port. If due to any reason, your USB port has stopped working, you won’t be able to use the webcam with that particular USB port. Therefore, this is important that you try changing the USB port and check if it is working or not. If it is working, this is confirmed that you have some problem with the USB port. However, if your webcam is still not working, the following tips and tricks would be helpful for you.

3. Install Webcam Driver

There are many times when you might not have to install the driver to use the webcam. However, many webcams do not work properly if you do not install the driver. In that case, it is clear that you need to install the webcam driver. Where can you find the driver? There are two ways to get it. First, you can use the CD that was given by the manufacturer with your webcam. Most of the webcam comes with a driver CD. Second, you can find the proper and latest driver on the manufacturer website. However, you need to know the exact model number of your webcam.

4. Uninstall and Re-install, Update Driver

If you already have the driver, but the webcam is not working properly, you need to uninstall the driver and install it again. Sometimes drivers can be in the middle of a conflict and hence, you might not be able to use the corresponding hardware properly. In such scenarios, you can uninstall the driver and re-install the latest version of the driver. Now, some manufacturers like Logitech offers an option in the Control Panel that you can use to uninstall the driver. On the other hand, you can use some third-party software uninstallers such as Revo Uninstaller, CCleaner, etc. to uninstall the driver. However, if you are not getting such a feature in the Control Panel or any third-party app, you can do the same from Device Manager. Therefore, search for Device Manager in the Taskbar search box or Cortana search box. Following that, locate your driver > right-click on it > select Uninstall Device. It may be a couple of seconds to get it done.

After that, you can download the latest version of the webcam driver and install it on your computer. In most the cases, it solves the problem instantly.

5. Enable Device from Device Manager

In case you have changed something on your computer, and that might block some settings in the Device Manager. For example, you might have mistakenly disabled the webcam device from Device Manager. If so, you should verify whether the device is up and running or not. This is quite important since you cannot find your webcam device if you do not enable it from Device Manager. Therefore, open Device Manager and locate your device. Right-click on it and make sure you can find Disable device option. If you find Enable device option in the right-click menu, that means the device is currently disabled. If so, you need to click teh Enable device option.

6. Check Camera Compatibility

There were mainly two different eras when your webcam was manufactured. If the webcam you are using currently was launched before Windows 7 release, you cannot use that webcam with Windows 10 computer. However, if your webcam was launched after the Windows 7 release and it is fully working with a Windows 7 PC, you can certainly use the same webcam with Windows 10 computer. To check the compatibility, you can follow these steps.

At first, open Device Manager and right-click on the webcam device and select Properties. After that, go to the Driver tab and click the Driver details button. If you are getting two files names ksthunk.sys and usbvide.sys, your webcam is Windows 10 compatible. However, if you are getting stream.sys file or a path, you cannot use that webcam with Windows 10 computer.

7. Check Privacy Settings

Let’s assume that you can use a webcam with Windows Camera app. However, you cannot use the webcam with another app like Maps or something like that. In that case, you need to check the privacy settings. In Windows 10, you can manage that from Windows 10 Settings panel. Therefore, press Win + I to open it. Then go to Privacy settings and switch to the Camera tab. On your right-hand side, you can find which app you can use with your webcam. Make sure you toggle the button for the corresponding app.

8. Disable Antivirus or Any Other Security Software

If you have recently installed any security software like antivirus, anti-malware or any internet security and following that, you aren’t able to use the webcam, you can try disabling that for a particular amount of time and check if it is working or not. In many cases, the webcam stops working after installing a poorly coded antivirus or security software.

9. Install Windows Update

If you have recently installed an update on Windows computer and following that the webcam has stopped working, there might be a bug. Therefore, you can wait for the update and install that as soon as it released.

That’s all! These are some of the working solutions you can use to fix your webcam missing problem in your Windows 10 computer.