I need help. Have tried to run Audacity on this laptop and cannot get it to work right.
It worked fine on the desktop xp. It downloads fine and installs but when try to record streaming audio from internet it sounds like big echo. also in the box where used to say ''what u hear'' it is blank and cannot make any selection. I have RealTek. I am pretty stupid about this stuff but Audacity was nice for me to use. simple. press Record, then when need to press Stop. Save my mp3 and ta-da. but i am at a loss with Vista. oh help.

I don't use Audacity, but does any of the info on ***this page*** help?

Also, there's some info at the bottom of ***this page*** that says "what u hear" may be called something else, depending on your sound card drivers.

No that did not help. i can still not get selection of 'what u hear' or 'stereo mix'...nothing. is greyed out.
is there another very easy to use program for recording streaming audio/or playing audio that works well on a laptop using Vista home basic 32bit, using Realtek HD audio? preferable free.

gamenut. You might try Spin It Again. You can download a free trial HERE

Bets

I've never used it, but this looks like it should do the job -

FREE Hi-Q Recorder 1.92

If the above dosen't work you could try Sonarca, that is what I used on my Vista (now Win7) Laptop and it works very well.

http://www.freesoundrecorder.org/free_sound_recorder.html

Ray

I don't have Vista so can't do any confirmation testing of the following.

I did a Google search for
Audacity Vista Realtek
and got hundreds of hits. I'd bet that you can find the answer to your problem by browsing through these hits yourself.