Comments on: Helpful Tip: Vista Volume Mixer

By: Stacy

Stacy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:35:21 +0000

Can someone tell me why my volume mixer won’t come up. My sound works, but is too loud and I want to turn it down. When I click on open volume mixer the little cirle comes up for a minute, and nothing happens.

By: gatesisidiot

gatesisidiot — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:06:06 +0000

This volume mixer is total crap! This is one of the reasons, why I won’t ever use Vista! I am sound technician, I want to quickly control mic input, line input, midi… I don’t like to control apps individually… why on earth I should do that??? To control the volume of Solitaire??? Is only Micro$oft so stupid?
I need a normal mixer, where I can mix different hardware inputs. I need a button to change from playing to recording (and reverse) mixer. That’s all.
But if you made Vista for begginers, secretaries and children, then all of us advanced users will have to stuck with XP or switch to Linux (or Mac).

By: Gene Thomas

Gene Thomas — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:34:22 +0000

This is a neat function–but it doesn’t work for Thunderbird (new mail sound), or Firefox.

By: roy

roy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:02:05 +0000

good thx

By: DKong

DKong — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:19:12 +0000

Now that I have vista..I have to say that I do love this.

But one thing I hate about the mixer is that you can’t minimize it…which is kinda annoying.

By: Mris

Mris — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:30:14 +0000

The volume mixer is definitely a handy feature, the problem is it doesn’t work with the media center program. I have a TV-tuner on my computer and often have a small media center window playing on the corner but if I mute or change the volume it changes the system volume. I read somewhere that they made this decision knowingly because most users would use media center in full screen mode but I wish they offered some way to change this behavior.

By: Pieter

Pieter — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:20:43 +0000

Ubuntu’s next release is going to come with something called PulseAudio. I’m not really sure whether it is a replacement of the current sound system or just some plug-in, but it’ll allow you to do the same thing. (Fedora 8 is also scheduled to include PulseAudio.)

In related software, this free program can make your audio files and microphone input sound much nicer:
[fxsound.com]

I read about it in a Dutch computer magazine today, however I have yet to try it.

(Update: oh my word, it really works! On the downside, the Free version of the program really tries to plug the Pro version.)

By: dkong

dkong — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:55:22 +0000

Hell, this is helpful for anyone who browses the web and listens to music at the same time.
Currently, I have flashblock installed in Firefox so most auto-starting music and videos are automatically paused to start…..but other than that- for flash games with annoying noise, it’s either mute the entire system or put up with the noise polluting my music….and this would totally be able to solve that.

So chalk this up as at least one thing I’m looking forward to in Vista.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:44:56 +0000

Daniel wrote:

For a “hard-core” gamer such as myself, this would be a godsend. Constantly i find myself playing with my VoIP, music player, and game sound settings. If one player happens to have his mic set too low, i have to hit the windows key and wait about 30 seconds so i can ajust his volume. I guess i could just buy more RAM, but eh…

I didn't even think about gamers when I was writing this, but like you said, it would be a godsend for you and many others, I'm sure.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:50:24 +0000

I absolutely love this feature myself, but Microsoft hid it away pretty good in Vista. I actually think this is the first thing that should popup when you click the volume icon, but instead you have to make sure to choose the Mixer option. Otherwise you can only adjust the overall volume of your system.

This is especially handy for some of those darn programs that don’t give you the option to shutoff the sound!