Feature & Windows Vista Walter on 11 Aug 2007 01:49 pm
More on Vista Volume Mixer
Since my last article on Vista’s new Volume Mixer, I got a few comments from people saying that Vista didn’t remember their settings and just set volume for other apps somewhat randomly. But Volume Mixer does remember the settings, just not the way you might think. I thought I’d do a follow-up with a few more details about Vista Volume Mixer. Take a look at the picture below:
Remember, a new app doesn’t show up in the Volume Mixer until it actually makes a sound - not just when you open it. So play around with. You’ll see that Vista Volume Mixer does remember the settings. It doesn’t remember fixed settings for each individiual app. Instead, it rather remembers settings in relation to the master volume. And that still applies when you change your system’s master volume when Volume Mixer is not open. That’s why you’re likely to see changes in position the next time you open it.
on 02 Jul 2008 at 11:05 pm 1.Mall said …
That’s a nice theory, but it doesn’t remember relative settings for most applications either. All but a few instantiate at the same level as the speaker volume. The worst offenders are IE, Firefox, Opera, K-Meleon, Seamonkey, Safari, and Flock, but various other applications not intended for multimedia have their little beeps and error sounds that blow you away too. I’ve got the ringing eardrums to prove it. The new mixer is basically a painfully partially implemented concept that could have been thought out better before adding it to a non-beta version of windows. They could have at the least allowed you to set a default sound to speaker volume ratio for new application processes, if not a maximum default fixed volume for new processes. You either have to have the speakers volume down so low you can’t control audio adequately from within your multimedia applications, or have your volume up high so you can control it from your multimedia applications and be prepared for ear pain when a new application is instantiated and finds some reason to make sounds…applications with startup sounds are particularly annoying because you can’t turn the volume down until the process is running so you have to take your ear drum blast each time before turning the volume down or muting them.