Controlling the sound

Someone asked me how to control a laptop's sound level without needing to press the function key / Fn button - not a very handy key combination if you're also trying to play music.

I looked up a utility to help with this - and it looks very helpful! It's called nircmd and seems to be able to do a whole range of things! WARNING - I have not tested this (yet).

 We can set up any Windows PC to have the sound controlled through any key we assign:

Download “nircmd.exe” from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

In a command window, type

nircmd.exe cmdshortcutkey "~%folder.desktop%" "Louder" "CTRL+SHIFT+M" changesysvolume 1000

nircmd.exe cmdshortcutkey "~%folder.desktop%" "Quiter" "CTRL+SHIFT+U" changesysvolume -1000

These commands will create 2 shortcuts on the desktop. The specified key combinations will increase or decrease the volume. Delete the shortcuts and it will remove the hot-key functions from the system.

Or we can make it mute/unmute the sound altogether with these:

nircmd.exe cmdshortcutkey "~%folder.desktop%" "Mute Volume" "CTRL+SHIFT+M" mutesysvolume 1 
nircmd.exe cmdshortcutkey "~%folder.desktop%" "Unmute Volume" "CTRL+SHIFT+U" mutesysvolume 0

There is also a utility called “volumouse” which allows us to set things up so that the mouse wheel acts as a volume control.