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Turn off Windows Default Sounds and Stop Driving Your Co-Workers Crazy!

Another year goes by and despite my best intentions I haven’t posted anything on my blog. Since it has been over a year since my last post I thought I would post something, if nothing else at least I'm consistent.

If like me you work in an open office environment you might find all the unnecessary sounds alerts of Windows irritating. This is especially true for developers as something we need to test something over and over. A popup or message box with a loud “DING!” gets old pretty fast. It’s even faster if you are a co-worker listening to the repeated “DING!” over and over. While one solution is to just mute the speakers that means other, and what I actually consider useful, sound alerts are muted, like incoming email sound alerts and Skype messages.

My solution is to disable the sounds I don’t want to hear. I’m sure everyone know how to do this but just in case.

In Windows 7
  1. Click on “Control Panel”
  2. Click on “Start”
  3. Click on “Sound”
  4. Click on the “Sounds” Tab
  5. Disable the sounds you no longer wish to hear


Here is the list of sounds l like to disable
·        Windows -> Default Beep
·        Windows -> Exclamtion
·        Windows -> Exit Windows
·        Windows -> Start Windows
·        Windows -> Logoff
·        Windows -> Logon
·        Windows Explorer -> Empty Recycle Bin
·        Windows Explorer -> Start Navigation

If you have others leave them in the comments.


Until next year, hopeful before.

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