Anyone know a way to schedule volume changes in Windows?

[AFoster]

I am running Windows 2000 and have set up Outlook to play a .wav file when email comes in. It's very useful for alerting me to new mail when I'm in another room in the house, but at night I have to remember to turn down the speaker volume or I'm awakened in the middle of the night by my PC announcing that new mail has arrived. Windows has a software volume controller in the Applications program group, so does anyone know of a way to schedule the muting of sounds. It would be great to set up my system to automatically mute itself at 9pm and return the volume to it's preset in the morning, at around 7am. Perhaps there is even a bored software engineer out there who might like to take up the challenge and produce a little freeware utility that does what I'd like ?? Thanks Andrew Foster

 

[geranimo://]

cant you just turn of your speakers when you go to sleep?

 

[AFoster]

cant you just turn of your speakers when you go to sleep?

Well, thats how I've been trying to do so far, but it relies on me remembering. As I said in my posting, when I forget I'm woken in the middle of the night by the sounds of arriving mail. There must be a tidier solution.

 

[geranimo://]

hehe, well, its kinda normal to me to turn off my speakers, so i guess im not the right person to ask..

 

[hardeez1]

hmm maybe you could do this through the task scheduler... or use the "at" command in ms-dos command prompt... if you dont no how to use these things just post again.

 

[BlaBli]

or use the "at" command in ms-dos command prompt... if you dont no how to use these things just post again.

so im posting ... can you please explain? is this AT command is for writing some kind of batch file or a script? how can i use it and for what purpose?
thanks for your help m8

cheers

 

[Verrona]

I am not sure that there u can schedule times for the sound to be muted. If there is i am sorrry but i haven't heard or noticed it before.

 

[BlaBli]

or use the "at" command in ms-dos command prompt... if you dont no how to use these things just post again.

so im posting ... can you please explain? is this AT command is for writing some kind of batch file or a script? how can i use it and for what purpose?
thanks for your help m8

cheers

 

[Cromewell]

AT is basically DOS's Scheduled Tasks, I don't think you can schedule a Mute command.

 

[Praetor]

Anyone know a way to schedule volume changes in Windows?

Sure, write a quick VB/C++ proggie to do that ... windows scrpting might even support it. If you dont wanna mess around with windows APIs (which are sometimes machine dependent) you can even do it via DirectSound I think (or hell use the CD player component for VB and set the volume)

cant you just turn of your speakers when you go to sleep?

1. Sleep?
2. What happens if I want very loud noises say every 20 minutes so I dont actually go to deep sleep?

 

[Verrona]

That is if u know how to program the app!!!!

 

[AFoster]

Thanks Praetor, the information you gave was useful, but if I knew how to do any of the things you suggested I would have done it. Can you explain how to go about doing what you suggest? Thanks.

 

[Lorand]

There's a ready-made mute.exe here: http://www.winplanet.com/article/1848-.htm
Download it and make a scheduled task out of it.

 

[Verrona]

That link doesn't lead to the app. I checked it out,

 

[Lorand]

Sorry, that was a broken link. Here's the file: http://edmullen.net/utility/mute.exe
If even that link doesn't work, then here's another: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,15480,00.asp

 

[AFoster]

Thanks Lorand. Scheduled the mute task twice - once for 10:30pm and once for 7:30am because it mutes if you execute it once and unmutes if you execute it again. Does exactly what I wanted to do - works great. Thanks.