Control Sound Remotely

[Craig_W]

Not sure if this is possible.

I want to be able to control the volume remotely, mute them really. Teachers insist on wanting speakers connected, but at lunch times when the kids are playing games and messing around , it gets very noisy!

Is there any software that can remotely disable the sound?

[webman]

AutoIT scripts have the ability to mute sound. Compiled it to an executable, and run it on target machine with PsExec.

I'll see what I can come up with

[NetworkGeezer]

Most control software allows you to run a program on student computers.

This being the case you could run the mute option NirCmd.

e.g.

nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 1

It allows changing of system volume too and other cools stuff.

It's BOFH time muhahahahahaha

[russdev]

Just thinking about this what I need is way to set the current record input as stero.

As with netsupport/tutor 3 can set it to listen to students computers great when showing users powerpoint on projector. But to do this so record input needs to be stereo but at other times need microphone so if can get program that can be run instead students accessing volume control which we prefer them not to.

russ

[webman]

NirCmd!!! That's what I was originally looking for; except I searched for Mircmd... ops: But yes, nircmd will do the job

[Craig_W]

Im just looking at NirCmd now. How would I use this to remotely mute machines? Or maybe even a whole room!

[NetworkGeezer]

What do you have in the way of ICT suite software:

NetOP, NetSupport, Impero, Synchroneyes?

Alterntive do you have psexec?

[woody]

Buy headphones for the PCs. We buy stacks of cheap ones from CPC, that way it doesn't matter too much if the odd one gets damaged, they can be handed out and collected at the end of lessons. So you don't get too much noise at lunch time, or during lessons for that matter!

[Craig_W]

Ive now figured it out!

Use nircmd.

Create a txt file with all machine names, run multiremote copy command, pointing to txt file. Then run mutesysvolume command to mute the machines. Sometimes takes about 30 seconds to apply the mute, but it works!



Thanks for the help

[Norphy]

Whats to stop them unmuting them again? That wouldn't take very long to work out I'd have thought?

[Craig_W]

We use Ranger which does a title check on all Windows, and we block the volume control panel, so they cant turn the mute off. We can then un mute the computers as and when required by the teachers.

All the machines have a slider wheel on the side to control the volume, so the kids still have control when the machines are not muted.

[sahmeepee]

I use another one called "nopey" (google it) which can do all sorts of stuff like altering winamp volume and windows volume. When used with sysinternals' psexec command you can make it control remote PCs.

[GeeDee]

I use some random command line mute / unmute app I found coupled with a permissions change on sndvol32.exe to deny the 'Students' group access to volume control to un-mute. The result of this is master volume muted and double clicking on the volume control (or running it by hand or whatever) just doesn't do anything. The whole lot is then reversed for 'sound on'.

It's all run via a batch file while is psexec'd as part of our home grown remote shutdown / reboot / logoff etc app; with check boxes to select machines to target.

Not entirely happy with it tbh, as psexec sends users / passwords in the clear and that's never good practice - and it's reasonably easy to find another way to un-mute the audio (Windows Media player volume options or whatever); but it does work pretty well all the same.

[NetworkGeezer]

Not entirely happy with it tbh, as psexec sends users / passwords in the clear and that's never good practice

I thought pseexec and other remote process utilities only send out clear text creds if you doing a Run As on the target computer or you the spawned process requires network access but you would have to specify these in the command line.

If you run psexec from an account with admin rights on the target computer(s) then it should just transfer password hashes as per normal remote SMB access.

[GeeDee]

That's correct - it will execute commands in the context of 'you' by default but there's no (authenticated) network access there.

Short of copying random scripts out to each local machine however (no thanks) you'll have to specify a username to run said scripts from a network resource and that's what is sent in the clear.

You are correct though - I should have qualified.