Originally posted by lenovofitup:

I own a Dell Presicion 3530. I own a Dell Presicion 3530. After using Animaze it completely replaced the webcam on my laptop. After using Animaze it completely replaced the webcam on my laptop. I tried several options, from the device manager, the official Dell assistant or the windows 10 troubleshooter, nothing works. I tried several options, from the device manager, the official Dell assistant or the windows 10 troubleshooter, nothing works. Currently I don't know what to do. Currently I don't know what to do. Can anyone help me?

Poseo una Dell Presicion 3530. Luego de utilizar Animaze remplazó completamente la webcam de mi Laptop. Intenté varias opciones, desde el administrador de dispositivos, el asistente oficial de Dell o el solucionador de problemas de windows 10, nada resulta. Actualmente no sé que hacer. ¿Alguien puede ayudarme?

Hello Lenovofitup,

Happy to help.

For any issue that you would want us to do some detective work on, it is best to send in the logs https://www.animaze.us/faq/tech/gatherlogs. (via email only, never via the forum, both the DxDiag file and the animaze.log file).

Without those logs, holding specific data, we can only do a lot of guesswork.
Read on below about what we assume is likely happening on your system (nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual computer ABCs in managing 2+ webcams on any Windows system).



In this case: I am wrong in assuming you have never worked with more than one webcam on a Windows system before, and that you are unaware that Windows has a "Windows Default Webcam" setting that dictates which is the "go-to" webcam on your system?

Details follow:

Every time you install a new web camera device (virtual or real) on Windows, the Windows OS automatically sets the newly installed webcam device as the new default webcam. Normally 99% of people when they buy a new webcam from the computer store, come home and plug it in, that's the webcam that they'd want to use from then on by default, so it is a common sense assumption.
This means all apps that use a webcam, unless instructed to use a specific device, by name, in the webcam selector, will likely try to open the new default first.
The old camera is not actually replaced in the actual sense of the word, it i still there, still functional, just the "default webcam" setting is updated to point to the new webcam,

Pretty much any webcam driver (virtual or real) that you would install would get the same treatment.
If your question is what to do to see the old webcam, instead of the virtual webcam, read below.

If you don't want to use the most recently installed webcam.
a. In your webcam app (Skype, Zoom etc), in the webcam selector you can simply select a different webcam (the old webcam) as input,
b. In the Windows settings, set your old camera as the new default webcam for Windows,
c. as a last resort, you can uninstall the new camera from the device manager if you want to. Windows should go back to the previous default.

If you did not know this and have accidentally altered the settings of the old webcam, perhaps also uninstalled the drivers from your old webcam. The webcam manufacturer can provide a download link to re-download and install the drivers.

Another aspect to remember is that Webcam access on Windows is exclusive. That means if software accesses a certain webcam, no other software can access the same webcam at the same time until the first software stops using it.

Last but not least, most modern security software ( or even Windows itself) has an access list about which software can access which webcam. Make sure you manage those access lists in accordance with your needs.


In closing, the Animaze webcam is not a mandatory component of Animaze, it is provided for convenience for folks who don't know how to get the video out of Animaze via other, more technical means (Spout2, OBS window capture). You can uninstall it if you want to, and just source the video via window capture or Spout2.


Let us know if the above was helpful.

Cheers, and happy streaming!

I understand what you just explained and it makes perfect sense but it turns out that it wasn't that simple problem either. Days later the laptop started having other similar problems in other internal components. then it was the audio system, the card reader, etc... to this day I don't know if animaze had something to do with it or it was just luck, a small trigger. I took advantage of the warranty and now I have another device. Thank you for responding to my message, it is greatly appreciated.