How to mute something permanently (as in after rebooting)

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

I want the mic muted so it doesn't play through the speakers. But every time I restart, the volume mixer unmutes it. How do I make it remember?

SlicEnDicE · Mar 17, 2023

You should start by listing all 3rd-party apps/games that has audio recording and playback configuration access. It would also be helpful to know which sound card and which driver you are using.

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

It's just this:

Nothing to do with any apps, just the sound system.

It's the built in Realtek Audio on an MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max motherboard. Device manager isn't specific.

Ghot · Mar 17, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
It's just this:

Nothing to do with any apps, just the sound system.

It's the built in Realtek Audio on an MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max motherboard. Device manager isn't specific.

Did you try this...

And I don't know whether you have this under Realtek in the Start Menu...

And in Device Manager under View > Show Hidden Devices...

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

Trouble is I want to use the microphone. It's part of the security camera. But Windows wants to pipe it through to the speakers. I can mute that (which is a seperate setting from it being a recording device) but it forgets on reboot. What I need to do is permanently disallow microphone for playback, but allow it for recording. Also I would like to be able to turn it on to listen in, but the default should always be off. I'm surprised all volume and mute settings aren't saved.

Ghot · Mar 17, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Trouble is I want to use the microphone. It's part of the security camera. But Windows wants to pipe it through to the speakers. I can mute that (which is a seperate setting from it being a recording device) but it forgets on reboot. What I need to do is permanently disallow microphone for playback, but allow it for recording. Also I would like to be able to turn it on to listen in, but the default should always be off. I'm surprised all volume and mute settings aren't saved.

There's Sound and Mic settings all over Settings and in the Realtek Audio Console.
I "have" a mic somewhere, but I haven't used it in about ten years.

So all I can do is look for things that look promising.

You might also want to check in whatever software controls your security cameras.
There may be a setting in there.

There may also be something in "Playback Device".

There's also a bunch of stuff under System > Sound in Settings. :/

And I just found where they hid this...

Pretty much, everything from the Windows 7 days in in there... somewhere.
Ya just gotta find it. :/

It's Microsoft's new system. Hide everything all over the place.

God Mode folder, may or may not help you.
Just create a new folder on your desktop, and name it... GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} ...and hit the ENTER key.
Inside you'll find links to all the settings in alphabetical order.

If you decide you don't want it... just delete it like any other folder.

It works on all versions of Windows, starting with XP... I think.

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

Interesting, I just set all the volumes randomly, then rebooted. Everything was remembered except the mic gets unmuted and it's volume reset to full. I tried closing and reopening the security camera software, and that didn't reset it. It's something else at startup, and I'm not using any other programs which should be doing anything with the mic.

The only thing I can see in Realtek (and system, sound) is one volume and mute for the mic, which unfortunately mutes the recording too.

Ben Myers · Mar 17, 2023

Press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type or paste "control mmsys.cpl sounds" into the "Open" box and click "OK". When the app appears, click on the "Recording" tab, double-click the microphone, click on the "Listen" tab, uncheck the box marked "Listen to this device", click "OK", then "OK" again.

Ben

Ghot · Mar 17, 2023

Ben Myers said:
Press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type or paste "control mmsys.cpl sounds" into the "Open" box and click "OK". When the app appears, click on the "Recording" tab, double-click the microphone, click on the "Listen" tab, uncheck the box marked "Listen to this device", click "OK", then "OK" again.

Ben

Or just go to Control Panel > Sound

If anyone wants a shortcut for Control Panel, you can get it here: C:\Windows\System32\control.exe
Just right click control.exe and choose: Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).

There's like 3 million other ways to get it, but i like just going to the file in question and creating a shortcut.
You can then pin it to the Taskbar or Start Menu or just leave it on the desktop.

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

Ah, that worked, thanks Ben. I do **occasionally** want to listen, but I guess I can go into the control panel then. Having it on when I don't want it is far more irritating.

By the way, control panel is on my start menu, I put back the good old one. Remember recently used apps?

Ghot · Mar 17, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Ah, that worked, thanks Ben. I do **occasionally** want to listen, but I guess I can go into the control panel then. Having it on when I don't want it is far more irritating.

By the way, control panel is on my start menu, I put back the good old one. Remember recently used apps?

Is that Open Shell or something else?

I just pinned Control Panel to my Taskbar...

hdmi · Mar 17, 2023

How to mute and unmute your microphone from command-line on Windows

How to mute and unmute your microphone from command-line on Windows operating system using the SoundVolumeView tool

www.nirsoft.net

Just find the friendly ID of your mic in the list and put the appropriate commands in a pair of desktop shortcuts to mute/unmute. Also, you can create a new task in Task Scheduler to re-mute at user logon after a delay of some seconds (you can type in 15 sec. or whatever you want in the delay box, you don't necessarily have to pick a list item to specify the delay...). Just be sure that the delay will be long enough that it re-mutes AFTER it gets unmuted by whatever it is that's causing the unmute, consider this a temporary workaround until maybe you can figure out what's causing it.

Ghot · Mar 17, 2023

There's also this...

Add Control Panel to Context Menu in Windows 10

How to Add or Remove Control Panel context menu in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

ThrashZone · Mar 17, 2023

Hi,
Unless it's a laptop all desktop mic's I've seen all have on-off buttons
If yours doesn't unplug it.

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 17, 2023

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Unless it's a laptop all desktop mic's I've seen all have on-off buttons
If yours doesn't unplug it.

The mic is outside the house.

Ghot said:
Is that Open Shell or something else?

I just pinned Control Panel to my Taskbar...

View attachment 55520

It's Startallback.

Pinning?! ARGH! Somebody actually uses that? It makes it look like a Mac! How do you tell what's running and what's a link? Start menu is for starting, taskbar is for running, desktop is for temporary shoving stuff.

hdmi · Mar 17, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Pinning?! ARGH! Somebody actually uses that? It makes it look like a Mac! How do you tell what's running and what's a link? Start menu is for starting, taskbar is for running, desktop is for temporary shoving stuff.

The only thing that I have pinned to my taskbar is File Explorer, as doing this doesn't make it harder to tell what's running. Some of my shortcuts are on a taskbar toolbar. One toolbar mimics the Quick Launch bar and only has the show desktop icon on it. Another one is centered (or almost) on my taskbar. By choosing not to pin apps to my taskbar, I have to sacrifice jumplists. But then, Open-Shell with the Win 7 style option enables jumplists in the Start menu. And control panel is on my Start menu also (among various other submenus).

Edwin · Mar 17, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
... How do you tell what's running and what's a link?

I have 3 items pinned to my Taskbar, (the Calculator is not),..., when running, they're lit, like they're supposed to be!

badrobot · Mar 18, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
It's just this:

View attachment 55511

Nothing to do with any apps, just the sound system.

It's the built in Realtek Audio on an MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max motherboard. Device manager isn't specific.

what kind mic is this?
USB mic? Webcam mic?
If it is a USB mic, use the hardware mute button and it will stay on mute.

Lamberto Vitali · Mar 18, 2023

hdmi said:
The only thing that I have pinned to my taskbar is File Explorer, as doing this doesn't make it harder to tell what's running. Some of my shortcuts are on a taskbar toolbar. One toolbar mimics the Quick Launch bar and only has the show desktop icon on it. Another one is centered (or almost) on my taskbar. By choosing not to pin apps to my taskbar, I have to sacrifice jumplists. But then, Open-Shell with the Win 7 style option enables jumplists in the Start menu. And control panel is on my Start menu also (among various other submenus).

I have jumplists. In the start menu where they should be. Most recent apps are listed in the start menu, with arrows. I use them all the time.

Edwin said:
I have 3 items pinned to my Taskbar, (the Calculator is not),..., when running, they're lit, like they're supposed to be!

View attachment 55623

No, far easier if they're just not there when they're not running. I'm currently running 9 progams, I don't want the taskbar littered with more which aren't.

Also, my taskbar has the name of the app, I can't tell what things are from their icon. I'm not prepared to memorise them all.

badrobot said:
what kind mic is this?
USB mic? Webcam mic?
If it is a USB mic, use the hardware mute button and it will stay on mute.

View attachment 55633

It's nothing as fancy as that, it's just a mic. And as I've already said, it's outside the house! Not convenient to go press a button on it even if it had one.

hdmi · Mar 18, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
I have jumplists. In the start menu where they should be. Most recent apps are listed in the start menu, with arrows. I use them all the time.

Same here, with the exception of most recent apps because I have disabled that one in Open-Shell settings so only most recently opened items are listed in Start menu (in a separate submenu as well as in jumplists). There's no need for SAB in that regard, as Open-Shell still works the same as ClassicShell, and these features were added to it way more than a decade ago (I started using ClassicShell at the end of 2009 when ClassicShell was still an early beta and people got their underpants up in a twist because Microsoft had replaced the up arrow button with breadcrumbs.)

Lamberto Vitali said:
No, far easier if they're just not there when they're not running. I'm currently running 9 progams, I don't want the taskbar littered with more which aren't.

Same here.

Lamberto Vitali said:
Also, my taskbar has the name of the app, I can't tell what things are from their icon. I'm not prepared to memorise them all.

I'm the exact opposite, the text labels are too much of a distraction to me on the taskbar, whereas in menus and submenus I need them to be exactly the same as your Start menu and control panel submenu from your screenshot.

Lamberto Vitali said:
It's nothing as fancy as that, it's just a mic. And as I've already said, it's outside the house! Not convenient to go press a button on it even if it had one.

The NirSoft utility that I linked to in my 1st reply should do the trick, situations like this are among my main reasons why I use ExplorerPatcher to bring back the Windows 10 taskbar, it lets me put a toolbar on my taskbar so all it takes to launch a shortcut (.lnk) with a command pasted into its target field is just a single mouseclick. Unnecessary mouseclicks are unnecessary.