T 'n' T: Sound Off, Sound On Get the Best of Windows and Office Audio Gregg Keizer
Mon 5/13/02 -- Windows beeps and boops, plays its theme song as it boots, and cranks out tunes from CDs almost as neatly as my car's stereo. But not everything about Windows audio rates a 10 on the volume knob.
I dedicate this week's tips 'n' tricks to the sounds that Windows makes. Want a quick way to mute the noise so you can answer the phone? Read on. Lost your cool over the tick-tick-tick sound that Windows XP makes every time you click a Web link? Don't lose your temper, just lose the tick with my tip. Here's to sounding good ...
Turn down the sound. Windows lacks a mute button -- a serious problem for those of us who love to listen to audio CDs or Internet radio, but need a quick way to kill the sound when the phone rings or someone walks into the office. You can silence the system by clicking the volume icon in the system tray (the part of the taskbar that holds the clock), then checking the Mute box, but is there a one-click solution?
Sure: Download mute.exe from its author Christian Klukas's home page (the page is in German, but you'll find the small utility with an English description about a third of the way down). Next, drag and drop the file to the QuickLaunch part of your taskbar to create a shortcut. To mute the sound (or unmute it, since this is a toggle-switch deal), just click the icon.
Dump the volume icon. Unless you find yourself frequently playing with Windows' audio controls (or prefer the two-click mute method I mentioned earlier), you can do without the icon hogging up space in the system tray. Get rid of it by opening the Sounds and Multimedia item in the Control Panel (it's called Sounds and Audio Devices in Windows XP), clicking the Volume tab, and clearing the "Place volume icon in the taskbar" checkbox. Click OK.
Add Office sound events. Microsoft Office isn't part of Windows, but from where I sit, it might as well be -- it's on every machine I use. To jazz up Word, Outlook, and other applications with sound events, download this free add-on from the Microsoft site. After you've installed it, pick Options/Tools from any Office app, click the General tab, and then check the "Provide feedback with sound" box. Click OK.
You'll probably want to disable some of these new Office event sounds -- more than a few are really stupid -- so steer for the Control Panel and double-click Sounds and Multimedia (again, Sounds and Audio Devices in Win XP). In the "Program events" list, scroll until you find "Microsoft Office." Select any sound you don't want, then pick "(None)" from the drop-down list. Click OK.
Digital tunes. Are you listening to muddier music than necessary? Open the Control Panel, launch System, and click on the Device Manager tab -- or in Windows XP, the Device Manager button on the Hardware tab. Right-click your CD drive, pick Properties, then click on the Properties tab. Check to make sure that the "Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device" box is checked. Click OK. (If the setting doesn't show, your CD drive supports only analog, not digital, audio playback.)
Kill ticks fast. The maddening clicky-tick that Windows XP makes whenever you click on a link in Internet Explorer or a file in Windows Explorer gets annoying after about five seconds. Open Sounds and Audio Devices from the Control Panel, click on the Sounds tab, and scroll in the "Program events" list until you find "Start navigation" under the Windows Explorer section. In the Sounds drop-down list, choose "(None)" and click OK. Ah ... blissful silence.
