Music during setup -- turn off?

[DWalker]

I had to reinstall XP Home on a Compaq Presario 900Z recently. During
one phase of setup near the end, as most of you know, there's some music
playing.

Now, the music is not bad, but this Presario doesn't have any hardware
volume controls for the speakers. They are JBL Pro built-in speakers.
The "fn" keys on the keyboard don't control the sound either.

There are up and down arrow buttons that might control speaker volume
after the Compaq drivers have been installed, but they are not there yet
during setup. Generally, Compaq assumes your software will control the
speaker volume.

But without any volume control, the music is LOUD. Loud. Did I mention
LOUD?

Is there ANY way to turn this music off? Any hidden F keys? I tried
several and nothing had any effect. Very annoying.

When you're done with that screen, the next screen plays one of the MS
"opening" chord sounds. VERY VERY LOUD. Much louder than the music on
the previous screen.

I hope that the Setup program for the next version of Windows will have
a way to turn off the music and sound. The designers are arrogantly
assuming that I'm not ALREADY listening to the music of my choice,
through a CD player, or a radio, or streaming music from my other
computer!

This is a bad out-of-the-box experience.

David Walker

 

[WM]

Actually, they can safely assume that you aren't listening to music - as
that section of setup only runs during a clean install of Windows - not
during an updgrade, and not while you can be doing anything else (it is
system modal).

Next time that happens, hit the Shift key and F10. That will open a command
prompt. Then run mmsys.cpl, and turn down the volume.

HTH.

 

[DWalker]

They CAN'T safely assume I'm not listening to music. I like Microsoft,
but do they think a computer is the only way to listen to music? Music
predated the computer, I would like to inform them!

I'm probably listening to music on my other computer, or on my home
stereo, or I might even be playing a "record" on my "turntable"! Or
maybe I'm watching TV and don't want loud music playing. It's entirely
possible that I'm doing a fresh install at home... Sheesh.

Thanks for the tip about shift/F10, I'll remember that. It's exactly
what I was looking for.

David