If you’re like most people, you probably use the Volume Mixer to adjust the sound levels of your computer speakers. But what if you want to change the sound settings of all your devices at once? That’s where the Sound Settings in Windows 7 come in. To access the Sound Settings, open the Start screen and type “Sound” into the search bar. Then click on it. You’ll see a list of all your devices that are connected to your computer. In this example, I’m showing my computer and my headphones (which are connected to my audio output). The Sound Settings for my headphones will be different than those for my computer. To change the sound settings of one of these devices, just click on it and then select “Sound.” You’ll see a list of options that will be available to you. Some options might be more important than others, so make sure you read through them before making any changes. When you’ve finished changing the sound settings for all your devices, just click on “Save.” Your changes will take effect immediately.
We should start off by pointing out that you can right-click the sound icon in the tray, and get a quick menu that gives you access to Sounds, Mixer, etc.
If you single-click on the volume icon, it’ll pop up the slider that we’re all familiar with—but you can also click the Speaker icon to open up the Speaker Properties dialog.
Not surprisingly, you can change your speaker settings in here.
If you open up the full mixer panel, you can also click on the System Sounds icon…
Which, naturally, pops up the Sounds panel where you can disable particular sounds, or all of them.
It’s nothing revolutionary, but Windows 7 is full of these little tiny tweaks that just make things easier to use.
