How in the Tech

Auto Mute your system volume in Windows

By Adam Myers ⋅ March 8, 2010 ⋅ Tags: Shortcuts, Windows

One of the first things I do on a fresh Windows install is disable the sound scheme – the tadas, bleeps, zings, and woos on every action and reaction is enough to drive me insane. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make the audio experience within Windows less jarring and while I do feel it’s light-years away from the old sounds, it’s still not my thing – and likely never will be.

If you are a user who keeps their sound events at their default, either because you welcome the auditory feedback or it just isn’t a major issue for you, you’ve still likely experienced the following scenario. Imagine you have a half hour to kill before your plane begins boarding at the airport, plenty of time to hammer out a few emails and not lose half your workday traveling. You fire up your laptop, Windows boots, and you log in … bada boo ding! The volume on your Windows start-up sound now has half the patrons at the gate looking in your direction. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but I’m sure there are at least a few of you that are slightly embarrassed during a situation like this. Of course this is just one of many other situations where an inappropriate Windows sound screeches out but the end solution doesn’t have to result in you disabling your sound schemes.

Auto Mute is a no frills free Windows application that sits in your tray and helps to tame random Windows auditory events. Auto Mute can be configured to mute the speaker volume on shutdown, log off, suspend, or even when the screen saver activates. Upon your next boot, the speaker remains muted and therefor you are free from public embarrassment. Lastly, and the main feature I use on my laptop, is the ability to toggle the mute status of your system with a keyboard shortcut – defaulting to CTRL+F10.

Auto Mute was tested under Vista and Windows 7 but should function fine in all versions of Windows.

Download Auto Mute