Silence befell Win2k Pro ...

[Hans-Jochen Trost]

All,

ever since I installed service pack 3 or service pack 4 (I went
through both), the sounds for Start Windows and Exit Windows do not
play any longer. The Sounds applet in the Control panel shows the
sound file to be present and plays it upon clicking the test button.
(Not to badmouth Microsoft, but I have replaced the references to the
two default fileswith one to one and the same file sounding a soothing
whistle of a steam engine.)

I appreciate any suggestions.

Cheers,

Jochen

hjtrost at microfab dot com


Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere,
nec scire ut an sis albus an ater homo.
Catullus

 

[Guest]

Win2k does not treat the content of C:\WinNT\media as
protected system files, so you can chop and add whatever
you want in this folder to make your own sound schemes...
but are you sure your files are a genuine .wav format?

If not then the OS won't recognise them... if you use
sound files with different extentions (like .au or .ram
or .wmp or .mp3) they almost certainly won't work...

Go to C/Panel -> Folder options -> Views... enable "show
file extensions for know file types" and take another look
at the C:\WinNT\media folder...

 

[Hans-Jochen Trost]

Win2k does not treat the content of C:\WinNT\media as
protected system files, so you can chop and add whatever
you want in this folder to make your own sound schemes...
but are you sure your files are a genuine .wav format?

If not then the OS won't recognise them... if you use
sound files with different extentions (like .au or .ram
or .wmp or .mp3) they almost certainly won't work...

Go to C/Panel -> Folder options -> Views... enable "show
file extensions for know file types" and take another look
at the C:\WinNT\media folder...

The file is called whistle.wav, and it works for the same purpose on
my backup PC (that's my older PC, doing various special services
including tape backup for both of my PCs). There, I have Windows 98
running.

If I go into Control Panel, open the Sounds applet, select "Exit
Windows", I get the file name displayed, and the test playing works.
Windows Media Player has no problem with it either. My Win2k machine
did play it at the desired time also before either SP3 or SP4 were
installed.

I had the file in a different directory, and the Sound applet showed
it with its full path and still played the test correctly. I now have
made a copy into the Media directory and tried to use it from there,
to no avail. Test works, real performance does not. I should add
that the whole complement of files is saved as a separate sound
scheme, and this scheme is the one offered when the Sounds applet
opens.

So, Windows does know perfectly well how to play the file and just
refuses to do it,

Cheers, Jochen

hjtrost at microfab dot com


Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere,
nec scire ut an sis albus an ater homo.
Catullus