Whats the best way to set sound to mute all on startup?

[ChrisH]

Im trying to set the sound to mute on startup as some of our PCs have little inbuilt speakers which can get very annoying with 30 of them. I have been playing with registry settings but no luck so far. Going to have a look a the manual approach now as well.

[webman]

http://ed.mullen.home.comcast.net/utility.html

Scroll down for MUTE.EXE

Why not just unplug the inbuilt speakers?

[webman]

Why not just unplug the inbuilt speakers?

...some of our PCs have little inbuilt speakers which can get very annoying with 30 of them.

~5mins each machine + finding appropriate time slot (computers not in use and "spare time" of technical staff) would be quite difficult.

Software solution - fairly easy to do, in theory via logon script. If the Windows API allows it (which it does) it's just a matter of finding the right way and order of doing things.

[ChrisH]

Thanks webman looks good. I have also started unplugging them as well once I found the right connector.

[_Bob_]

mute.exe is here

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...d,15480,00.asp

for those behind smartfilter. Quite a neat little utility.

[tarquel]

If your wanting to permenantly disable the sound without phyisically doing it [i.e. in case in the future they want the speakers back on again], disable the device in Device Manager

Works a treat then if someone needs the sound on, you can just log in as a admin, enable it and log off

...its what I do anyhow hehe

I do this mainly because if I disabled it in the bios etc and installed XP, I wouldnt have a driver installed when turning it back on again.

Of course, you could turn it off in the bios after installing xp [and the driver]

Regards
Nath

[Frazer]

Mute.exe appears to be easiest option.
Something i found: http://www.codecomments.com/VBScript/message824060.html

[tarquel]

Not that I've tried it, by from what I can gather, you can use mute to set the volume to mute when they log on? [a large "dur" I hear but bear with me]

This, to me is pointless, as the kids will just un-mute the volume again hehe [or did i miss something?]

Cheers
Nath

[ChrisH]

I have put mute.exe into practice until I get round to disconnecting all the speakers thanks all

[DaveP]

Auto Mute is a free little program that simply mutes your PC whenever it is turning on or waking up from sleep or suspend modes.

The sound is automatically muted when the computer is turning off or is going to suspend mode. The next system start is absolutely silent even if you forgot to turn the sound off in previous session. After that you can enable sound effects manually, using a shortcut combination. Moreover, you may use this keyboard shortcut to quickly switch the sound on and off when working.

Notes: Memory used: 9 Mb.

Link and download: Auto Mute - software to make computer silent on system start, on waking up form suspend mode, or on user logon

[Alis_Klar]

I found that if you disable sound you need to disable the "beep" device in device manager. This is a hidden device. So go to view --> show hidden devices first. It is listed under "non-plug and play devices"

[rvdmast]

I'm a little surprised that no one mentioned nircmd, a tool that can set volume, mute/unmute, write and delete values and keys in the Registry, write values into INI file, dial to your internet account or connect to a VPN network, restart windows or shut down the computer, create shortcut to a file, change the created/modified date of a file, change your display settings, turn off your monitor, open the door of your CD-ROM drive...

[ricki]

Have a look at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html you can run it as a script at logon