How to disable Windows system sounds - permanently - but not application sound

Question

I prefer the sound scheme of Windows 7 HP to be set to "No Sounds" ALL the time. The problem is, when I switch themes, the themes switch sound schemes also. I know I can go in and disable/change to "No Sounds" every time by hand, but is there a way to turn it off and keep it off, regardless of the theme?

EDIT I want to disable Windows sounds, not application sound.

Answer 1

OK, I went to the folder where all system sounds were stored, and moved the entire folder elsewhere, so if it does change system sound schemes, it won't have a source to play the sounds...

On Windows 7 and Windows 10, the folder is: C:\Windows\Media

---

The other option is Sound Sentry...In the accessibility control panel, you can choose to have all sound disabled and, optionally enable visual cues instead.

From TenForums:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/71209-turn-off-sound-sentry-visual-notifications-windows-10-a.html

Answer 2

In Windows Vista and later, you can control per-application sounds, including system sounds. Click the volume icon in the taskbar, then click on "mixer".

Click the mute button under "System sounds". Applications' sounds will still play, but system sounds will not.

Answer 3

I had the same issue and tried using the "prevent changing sounds" Group policy setting, but whenever you change the theme it would change the sound scheme so that didn't really work.

Deleting or renaming the folder sounds like one way to fix it, but I found that updating the registry to removing the sounds from all of the themes also works. This Powershell script will remove all of the sounds assigned to each sound scheme so that they all are equivalent to the No Sound scheme. (NOTE: you may want to backup the hkcu:\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps registry key first in case you want to recover the sounds later.

$ThemeSounds = Get-ChildItem hkcu:\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps -Recurse | Get-ItemProperty
foreach ($regkey in $ThemeSounds){
    $strVal = [string]$regkey.'(default)'
    if($strVal.EndsWith(".wav")){
        Set-ItemProperty -Path $regkey.PSPath -name "(default)" -Value ""
    }
}

If you change hkcu:\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps to hkcu:\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default it should only remove sounds for the Windows group listed in the sound settings and not any of the other apps.

Answer 4

1. Go to:

   C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\
   

2. Open up the specific theme file (e.g. newtheme.theme) in Notepad

3. Update and save SchemeName to No Sounds:

   [Sounds]
   ; IDS_SCHEME_DEFAULT
   SchemeName=No Sounds
   

Answer 5

Go to Sound under Hardware and Sound in Control Panel (or just use the Start search), open the Sounds tab, then select the "No Sounds" scheme.

Answer 6

Been messing around with this myself, simply deleting all the audio-files in the Windows dir of the clients is both the least elegant and most surefire way of accomplishing this. I find it rather perplexing this can't be controlled in a more elegant manner, catering to a silent sound scheme is not exactly filling a niche.

Answer 7

Completely disabled all nasty windows sounds :)

You don't need to follow all this steps but it's feel right after all the pain and stress, just follow the step 1 and 4.

1. Go to Sound under Hardware and Sound in Control Panel (or just use the Start search), open the Sounds tab, then select the "No Sounds" scheme. the @Hello71 answer

2. In Windows Vista and later, you can control per-application sounds, including system sounds. Click the volume icon in the taskbar, then click on "mixer". check the @nhinkle answer, but be sure that you first put the volume to the minimum.

3. Delete C:\Windows\Media but if you can't deal with the permissions, just change the name of the folder, by @studiohack

4. Finally what really does the trick in a elegant way, find or save as .reg and disable all sounds permanently (source)

   Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization]
   "NoChangingSoundScheme"=dword:00000001
   

Answer 8

In Windows 7, type 'sound' in the Control Panel search box.

Then click on 'Change System Sounds' near the top of the results.

This brings up a dialogue box, which has a drop-down menu.

One option on that menu is 'No sound'.

Click OK.