How to Stop Your Webcam From Freezing and Crashing on Windows 10

 A technological change made in Windows 10 Anniversary Update caused a problem where webcams failed to work, and the respective software (like Logitech, Skype) simply hung up within minutes of use.

Microsoft is working on an official fix that will be available in September. But, if you can’t wait a month before your webcam works properly again, there’s a registry hack you can use to re-enable the old behavior and fix this problem.

First, open the registry editor by opening the Start menu, typing “regedit”, and pressing Enter.

Then, navigate to the following key in the left sidebar:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform

Right-click the “Platform” key in the left sidebar and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Name the value “EnableFrameServerMode”. Double-click it and set the value to “0”.

The next part depends on if you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows to perform this process. Not sure? If you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows 10, you’re done–no more tweaks necessary. If you’re using a 64-bit version of Windows 10, though, you’ll also need to navigate to the following key in the left sidebar:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform

Add the same setting here, right-clicking the “Platform” key and adding a DWORD value with the name “EnableFrameServerMode” and the value “0”.

You can now close the registry editor. Your change will take effect immediately. Just relaunch any applications where your webcam was freezing and they should work normally–no reboot or sign out necessary.

If you want to undo this change in the future after Microsoft actually fixes Windows, just revisit the same location in the registry and delete the “EnableFrameServerMode” value you added.

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