I don't see the save button for sound settings (under media) in 0.43.4. That was a handy feature, anyone know why it is gone?

There seems to be more of a push to try and have settings and preferences saved within the patch. However, you can still set default devices using the startup flags in the Preferences dialog.

http://puredata.info/docs/faq/commandline

I found the ability to save in the Media drop down convenient for when other (less familiar with PD) people are using my patch, with possible different sound cards. I guess I can include something in my gripd GUI, but I have to discover what audio devices they have and let them pick one and then save in the startup batch so they don't have to do it each time. Not impossible to do from patch, but will take me a while to figure out.

Check out the mediasettings library if you haven't already. It's meant to simplify that from within the patch.

will do, thanks