Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

hierobryan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 4, 2008
622
0
earth/jupiter
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?
 
1. Notice I posted in a Windows forum.

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 :D
 
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 :D

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.
 
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.
 
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?


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!
 
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.
 
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?

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
 
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?
 
Unless it's onboard, I'd just take out the sound card lol.

Then again, I'm like the only person who actually ads their own sound card in their PC.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

crybaby.jpg

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?

I assume you work in IT, then use a Group Policy to block it.
 
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.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.