Is it possible to schedule my laptop to mute and unmute at a specific time?

Question

I always used to wake up to my favorite radio station on my alarm clock. However, I have moved and can no longer get that radio station over the air. To solve this problem, I would like to stream the station on my laptop, but have it muted overnight, then set it to unmute at a specific time in the morning, so that it will act as an alarm clock. Is there a way to schedule my laptop (Windows 7 64-bit) to unmute at a specific time?

Answer 1

You can use the utility NirCmd to mute and set your volume from the command line.

Mute

nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 1 

Unmute

nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 0 

Just use the built-in scheduler. There is a basic overview of using the scheduler here or look at schtask or at to schedule from the command line.

Answer 2

You can use mute.exe and schedule a task to unmute your system volume at a specific time. Just follow these instructions:

1. Click the start orb, type “Task Scheduler”, and press Enter.
2. Click “Create New Task” (not basic).
3. Name it “Unmute”.
4. Go to the “Triggers” tab.
5. Click “New” (defaults to schedule).
6. Enter the frequency and time you want the unmute to occur and click “OK”.
7. Go to the “Actions” tab.
8. Click “New” (defaults to run program).
9. Browse for “Mute.exe” and put in the necessary argument, e.g. Off and click “OK”.
10. Go to the “Conditions” tab.
11. Here, define how long you want the computer to be idle before activating the unmute.
12. Click “OK”.

To mute, you can create another task following the above steps with the argument On.