Customizing Sounds


Windows plays certain sounds for key system events, such as exiting windows, receiving new mail, logging on and logging off, and others. You can change these sounds, as well as adjust the volume, using the Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel.

To select or adjust the speaker volume and/or use a different sound scheme, follow these steps:

1.

Click Start and then Control Panel. You'll see the Control Panel options.

2.

Click Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices.

3.

In the lower part of the window that lists Control Panel icons, click Sounds and Audio Devices. You'll see the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box.

4.

Do any of the following:

To adjust the volume of your speakers, use the Volume tab and drag the volume bar between low (quieter) and high (louder).

tip

If an event does not have a sound icon next to it, a sound is not played. You can assign sounds to these items by selecting them and then choosing a sound.

To use a different sound scheme, click the Sounds tab. Display the Sound scheme drop-down list and select a scheme.

You can also change the sound for individual events by selecting the program event from the list and then displaying the Sounds list and selecting the sound to play (see Figure 13.11).

Figure 13.11. You can customize the sounds played for program events.


The other tabs help you troubleshoot and upgrade audio equipment as well as voice recognition features. These topics are not covered in this book, although you can find information about hardware settings in Chapter 19.

5.

Click OK. Your changes are put into effect.

The Absolute Minimum

This chapter covers some of the many changes you can make to personalize Windows XP to suit your preferences. In particular, keep the following tips in mind:

  • Making a change to the desktop is most often just for the appearance of it. You make all of these changes in the Display Properties dialog box. You can display this dialog box by right-clicking a blank part of the desktop and selecting Properties. You can select a theme for the display, choose a background image, use a screen saver, or change the appearance (color, font, and placement) of window elements.

  • If you want to put the My Computer and My Documents icons back on the desktop, you can do so by clicking the Customize Desktop button on the Desktop tab. You then can check the desktop icons to display, change the appearance of icons, and have Windows get rid of desktop icons that haven't been used. To get rid of unused icons, use the Desktop Cleanup Wizard, which is covered in Chapter 18.

  • On the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialog box, you can change the resolution and the color quality.

  • You can change both how the mouse works and how the mouse pointers appear by using the Mouse Control Panel icon.

  • Other common changes include using a different sound scheme or selecting different sounds for key system events, such as logging on or logging off. To implement such changes, you use the Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel.




    Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Windows XP
    Absolute Beginners Guide to Windows XP (2nd Edition)
    ISBN: 078973432X
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 176
    Authors: Shelley OHara

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net