The webcam does not work on Windows 10. How to turn on the camera on a laptop

Many users, after upgrading their operating system to Windows 10, work quietly on their laptop or computer and at one point discover that the webcam does not work. Why? After all, everything worked perfectly on the old Windows 7 or Eight, but it doesn’t work on Ten! Moreover, this can happen both with an external one connected via USB on a computer, and with a built-in webcam on a laptop. What to do?
The first and most correct step is to force the system to reinitialize the connected gadget and forcefully reinstall the driver for it.
To do this, open the Windows 10 device manager and in the “Image processing devices” section we find the Webcam installed on the system. Right-click on it and select “Delete”.

The OS will ask if we really want to remove the webcam driver. We agree and wait for the process to complete. After that, right-click on the “Image processing devices” section and select the “Update hardware configuration” menu item. The same can be done through the “Actions” menu section. A new driver installation should start. By doing this, we ruled out the possibility that it could have become “crooked” during the update and simply reinstalled it again. Checking the operation of the webcam.

Did not help? Then the installed software may be outdated and needs to be updated. We go to the device manufacturer’s website, where you need to find and download the latest webcam driver, as well as a set of related software. In the case of laptops, you should look for the driver on the website of its manufacturer.
We install the downloaded software, restart the computer and check the operation.

If the manufacturer's proprietary webcam software does not work for some reason, try installing the one recommended by Windows 10. To do this, go to System Settings and find the “Devices” section. In it we are interested in the “Connected devices” subsection:

We find our webcam in it, click on it with the left mouse button. Additional options will appear, including a “Get application” button. Click it and wait for the operating system to install it. Reboot and check the operation of the device.

Note:
1. Some laptops have additional security settings by default that can disable or block the webcam at the application level. A striking example is some models of Lenovo laptops, where you need to additionally launch the Lenovo Settings utility, go to the “Camera” section and turn off the “Privacy Mode”.
2. After the release of Windows 10, I had to deal with cases several times when I had to additionally update the BIOS of the laptop motherboard. Without this, some functions simply refused to work. This point should be clarified on the laptop manufacturer’s website. Fortunately, the update itself is now performed simply by launching a special utility.

External hard drive not visible in Windows Explorer...

Almost all laptops found on the computer market are equipped with a built-in video camera. With it you can take photos and videos, conduct online broadcasts and make video calls. But what to do if the camera stops working?

If you are the owner of Windows 10, then after connecting to the Internet, the OS will independently download the drivers necessary for the device to work. The camera may not work, it may be turned off by software and needs to be turned on.

Advice! You can turn on the webcam using hot keys. For manufacturers Asus, Acer, HP, most laptop models turn the camera on/off using the Fn+V key combinations (or Fn+ key with a camera image). Lenovo models use the Fn+Esc combination.

Also, all connected peripherals are listed in the device manager:

RMB on Start → Device Manager.
Open the Sound, Game or Video Devices or Imaging Devices tab and find your webcam.
Right-click on it and check if the “Enable” function is available. If so, turn on the camera and check its operation (using the Camera app in Windows 10 or Skype).
Check for a yellow exclamation mark on the icon for your camera or other peripheral devices, which warns of problems.

Trouble-shooting

Important! If you do not find your webcam in Device Manager or it is marked with a yellow exclamation mark, then you need to update the driver.

To find a driver suitable for your webcam, it is best to go to the website of the laptop model manufacturer and download the one you need.

Manufacturer	Website
Asus	asus.com
Aser	acer.com
Dell	dell.com
HP	support.hp.com
Lenovo	support.lenovo.com
MSI	ru.msi.com
Samsung	samsung.com
Sony	sony.ru
Toshiba

The webcam is a piece of hardware, but you can also download it for Windows 10. More precisely, you can download a utility that will allow you to work with this component. For example, take pictures, record videos, or even make calls. But for everything to work correctly, you need to download the drivers - it's free, but extremely necessary.

Some users, having successfully updated to the latest version of the operating system from Microsoft, begin to notice certain problems with their computer. For example, some peripheral equipment may not work. The web camera often starts to turn off, some flash drives are not readable without installing additional drivers, etc. In order not to change the equipment to new ones, you should download special programs for free on our portal that will allow you to update the drivers of your devices for Windows 10.

It is important to distinguish between two situations: the device worked previously, but has now stopped, or it never worked and you only recently installed it. As a rule, the problem is hidden in the absence or incorrect installation of drivers. Of course, you can download and solve all problems literally in one click, but there are other solutions.

There is an installation option when the web camera is installed using the operating system itself. To do this, you need to go to Device Manager and look for the “Image processing device” item there. Right-click on it and delete it along with the drivers. After a hardware update, this device should work fine.

But it will also be possible to try installing some other drivers suitable for your webcam. To do this, select the “Update drivers” item in the context menu and enable the option to search for drivers on your device. Sometimes the installation wizard suggests a suitable driver, which you can try to install.

What webcam programs can be downloaded for free?

Our resource offers you to choose utilities, after installing which the web camera begins to be used much more efficiently. There is a whole galaxy of solutions that we can advise you:

– for calls and communication;
WebCam – for pictures;
Test Webcam – to check the functionality of your hardware;

We have a large collection, use the search to take advantage of it. Surely you will choose some fairly popular program, the installation of which will allow you to communicate with friends and relatives and at the same time see each other clearly. Agree that standard calls are gradually becoming a thing of the past and today more and more people are trying to use video calling.

Now you understand that it is impossible to download a webcam since it is a physical thing. But for Windows 10, you can download other software solutions that will expand the capabilities of your hardware.

In almost every home of a modern person you can find the property of computerization - a telephone or a computer. These devices help us communicate with loved ones who are too far from us, find tons of different information, play songs and much more. Also no less revolutionary is the camera. After all, such a device helped people visit different countries without leaving their own home, capture pleasant moments and much more, so in the article below we will talk in detail about how to turn on the camera on a laptop with Windows 10, and why it may not turn on. The article is recommended for novice users of the Windows operating system.

How to enable the built-in camera on Windows 10

First, you should make sure that the camera is generally working, so if you are not sure that the camera is working, then immediately go to the second point of the article. Users of the Windows operating system complain that they often have to reinstall their operating system or do a complete reset of all data, which is not very convenient. Why is this happening?

Windows is the most widely used operating system in the world. Therefore, it is used by both ordinary people and hackers, who find more and more new system vulnerabilities every day. And then they are tested on the first type of people, which can cause their drivers (the connecting unit between the physical device and the application software) to fail, hard drives to break, data to be deleted, and other equally unpleasant incidents.

After reinstalling Windows, you must install drivers, but if there are none for each element of the laptop, then the system itself searches for them and finds them, but not always successfully. After all, there are not so few manufacturers.

Instructions on how to enable the camera on a Windows 10 laptop:

How to check your webcam in Windows 10

If you did everything as in the instructions above, but you don’t have the tools to check your webcam, then this item is just for you. First, you will need to decide how it will be more convenient for you to carry out the check, using a Windows application or a browser program. Both methods are very effective, but the latter may not work due to the lack of Flash Player.

How to check the camera using a browser:

Go to any website that offers you photography services.
Allow the site to use your webcam.
If there is an image, then the camera is fully operational. If not, then the problem is either in the camera itself or in the operating system.

In the paragraph on how to enable the camera on a laptop with Windows 10, it was already mentioned that such an operating system often takes attacks from hackers. In the next paragraph of the article, we will tell you how to determine that a hacker has taken possession of the camera and why it is not available to other applications.

Why is the camera not available for apps?

If the camera is in use, a red indicator next to it lights up - this is done for a reason. If your camera's LED blinks for no apparent reason or is sometimes unavailable, for example, for Skype, then this is a clear sign that your computer is infected with a virus.

The specificity of Windows is that the camera can only be used by one application, no more. To solve this problem, we recommend installing an antivirus. After all, nothing will help as much as an antivirus, preferably acquired honestly.

Finally

We hope that after reading our article on how to enable the camera on a Windows 10 laptop, you have solved your problem. If you invite a specialist to fix this problem, he will charge you a hefty sum just for the visit. But now you know what you need to do, and absolutely free.

After installing and updating to Windows 10, users may encounter an issue where the camera on the laptop does not work. This problem may be due to either driver incompatibility or a malfunction of the hardware itself. To set up your camera, you should use the following tips.

If your camera doesn't work on your Windows 10 laptop and you don't know how to set it up, you should follow these steps:

You need to check whether the drivers are compatible with Windows. To do this, you need to go to “Device Manager” and find the “Other devices” branch. In most cases, webcams are displayed here. To do this, right-click on the “Start” icon and select the desired element.

Select the camera and double-click to open information about it. In the “Driver” tab, select “Update”. If this operation did not help solve the problem and the website of the laptop model developer has a driver specifically for Windows 10, click “Uninstall” and install the correct software.

The official websites of laptop developers that have camera drivers are as follows:

Manufacturer	Website
Asus	asus.com
Aser	acer.com
Dell	dell.com
HP	support.hp.com
Lenovo	support.lenovo.com
MSI	ru.msi.com
Samsung	samsung.com
Sony	sony.ru
Toshiba	support.toshiba.com

Here you need to select and download the required driver. If there is no driver for Windows 10, but there is one for Windows 1, download and install this driver. In most cases it is suitable.
To install new software, do the following. Initially, click “Delete” driver. Then reboot the PC.

After the reboot, go to the “Device Manager” again, open the camera branch and click “Update”. Select the option “Search for drivers on this computer”

Specify the path to the driver. We wait for the installation to complete and reboot the laptop.

IMPORTANT! If the webcam in Windows 10 does not work, to check its functionality you need to use not only the standard application, but also third-party programs. It is possible that the application is causing the problem.

You can also try running the drivers in compatibility mode. To do this, right-click on the driver icon and select “Properties”. In the “Compatibility” tab, set the compatibility mode for Windows 10.

If these steps do not help solve the problem, right-click on the webcam driver and click “Fix compatibility problems.”

Click “Check program”.

If the driver is installed, reboot the laptop and check the camera for functionality.

It's also worth checking your network firewalls. Often, if the camera is used to send or view video, it is blocked by a firewall. It is worth adding the camera application to the defender exception.

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