I have some stupid workers who keep watching movies while I'm not around, so I need to completely disable ALL audio in Windows XP without having to uninstall the audio drivers. Help please? Perhaps there's a simple registry setting?
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How to COMPLETELY disable audio in Windows????
- Thread starter hierobryan
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1. Notice I posted in a Windows forum.
2. I don't want to have to register on a Windows forum website.
3. Nevermind, because I already disabled it in the bios.
Windows on a Mac. Related to specific questions of running Windows on a Mac, not general Windows questions like yours is.
I can understand that you dont want to register on Windows forums though
Windows on a Mac. Related to specific questions of running Windows on a Mac, not general Windows questions like yours is.
I can understand that you dont want to register on Windows forums though
Well, by reading my first post, you can't tell if I'm talking about Windows on a Mac or Windows on a PC, riiiight? Okay then.
It doesnt matter if you run Win on a Mac or PC, but "Windows on a Mac" forum is dedicated to specific issues when running Windows on a Mac hardware like troubles with drivers, etc.
Run Control Panel from Start Menu
Click System
Select Hardware tab up top
Select Device Manager
scroll down until you see "Sound, Video & Game Controllers"
Right click on those pertaining to Audio - you should be able to disable your sound drivers that way w/o having to mess with registry.. and is easy to enough to reenable, by doing same procedure
hope this helps!
Thanks for the suggestion, but I already knew about that. When I tried, it would only let me disable one of the many audio codecs/drivers, which did not make a difference.
Go into Services and find Windows Audio. Stop it, then set it to disabled. That will completely stop audio, regardless of which driver is used for the sound hardware and where the audio comes from or goes to.
All audio is routed through the Windows Audio service, so if you shut that off you stop audio from working. You can access Services by going into Control Panel then clicking Administrative Tools.
All audio is routed through the Windows Audio service, so if you shut that off you stop audio from working. You can access Services by going into Control Panel then clicking Administrative Tools.
NO NO NOOOO!!!! That doesn't work when they use headphones. So far wrldwzrd89 wins for the best advice.
Why didn't you just mute the sound? That way you could have turned it on and off at your leisure, instead of having to go in an enable/disable services...
my .02
Because if they can put a DVD in a disk tray, I'm sure they could also figure out how to unmute the sound?
... did you even read the quote you used?
This may sound silly, but what are you trying to accomplish? Seems more like you don't want your coworkers watching movies and it is somehow your responsibility to prevent them from doing such things. I assume because of company policy. What does that have to do with sound? Why don't you just uninstall any DVD playing software? Or fire employees that don't follow company rules?
I'm not always there to catch them watching, that's why I have to disable the audio more than just clicking MUTE. These guys are new to computers, so they DO know how to unmute...but they don't know how to enable audio in the BIOS.
You should obviously have a password protected bios as well or else they'll just get in there and muck around.
I don't work in IT (though I do work for an IT company)...I just know more than the average PC user. And trust me, these guys won't muck around in the bios...they don't even know what a bios is.