How can I disable the beep when changing the volume?

Question

On Windows XP, whenever I raise or lower the volume via the system tray, the PC makes a beep when I let go of the mouse. How do I disable this?

Answer 1

Our friends over at the How-To-Geek have a nice guide to do just this.

Open up Control Panel and find the Sounds and Audio Devices panel, choose the Sounds tab and then find “Default Beep” in the list.

Change the sound drop-down on the bottom to “None” and then click Apply. This should disable the volume control beep.

You’ll want to also change Critical Stop to “None” as well, and should probably also turn off some of the other items.

You can also use TweakUI to get rid of some of the beeps, but if you follow the items on this page you shouldn’t need that.

Answer 2

If you still get a speaker beep, disable the beep.sys hardware driver (really!):

This link goes to a PDF with good graphics that describes how to do it.