Brains working towards machine consciousness

My machine developed an interesting 'issue' a little while ago.  For some reason, it decided I didn't want to hear anything I tried playing in Windows Media Player - other apps would play OK.  I am not sure what caused it, but I did find a way to get the sound back in WMP today.
Yesterday I was looking at the Audio control panel - and I noticed that if I went into the (so-called) advanced settings, that it was showing the mute-all button was selected.  Now, that sounds like a simple user error, right?  But it wasn't.