Audio mixing in Vista?

GlacierOne of the greatest and silliest limitations in Windows to date has been that there is only a single volume control for all "wav" audio streams. (Yes, there is some mixing capability for physically separate devices such as microphones and CD drives and MIDI, but other audio is all lumped together into a single stream)

For example, If I'm using Windows sounds (Office "feedback sounds", Windows custom sounds, ...) and they're at a good volume level and then I want to play some music, when I increase the volume level to enjoy the music the Windows sounds also go up in volume to "super annoying".

A terrible and klugey solution, but better than blasting Windows sounds, would be for Windows Media Player and other software to be able to mute Windows sounds when audio media is playing. But it can't do that.

My question is, does Windows Vista allow separate "wav" audio inputs to be controlled separately, or are they still lumped into a single stream?

Thanks!

---Wayne

GlacierWayne,

Good news for you. In Windows Vista, the sound mixer now has a mixer in which every program has its own level control. You can access it from the System Tray and easily set any level for Media Player, Communicator, games, Windows system sounds, and any other tasks that make noise.

--
Dave Johnson
Windows User Assistance team
Microsoft Corporation

GlacierThanks for taking the time to respond. . --- Wayne
"Dave Johnson [MSFT]" <davejoh@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:12090BC4-493C-45FC-BC66-6E505F0500D8@microsoft.com...
Wayne,

Good news for you. In Windows Vista, the sound mixer now has a mixer in which every program has its own level control. You can access it from the System Tray and easily set any level for Media Player, Communicator, games, Windows system sounds, and any other tasks that make noise.

--
Dave Johnson
Windows User Assistance team
Microsoft Corporation

Wayne Erfling was thinking very hard :
> GlacierThanks for taking the time to respond. . --- Wayne
> "Dave Johnson [MSFT]" <davejoh@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:12090BC4-493C-45FC-BC66-6E505F0500D8@microsoft.com... Wayne,
>
> Good news for you. In Windows Vista, the sound mixer now has a mixer in
> which every program has its own level control. You can access it from the
> System Tray and easily set any level for Media Player, Communicator, games,
> Windows system sounds, and any other tasks that make noise.
>
> --
> Dave Johnson
> Windows User Assistance team
> Microsoft Corporation

Of course, the issue is when you set the master volume to the loudest you want
any sound to play, any new application that you run and have not set individual
volumes for plays at the loudest volume you set! Would be nice if there was a
'new app maximum volume' setting separate from the master volume.

--

Mike Matheny