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:
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.