Adjusting Sound Volume

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 25, 2019)

Windows utilizes sound for many purposes. You can adjust the volume at which Windows plays those sounds by using the volume icon in the Taskbar.

Windows uses a lot of different sounds as it interacts with you. In addition, you may have applications installed on your system that also utilize different sounds. Assuming that your computer system includes built-in audio and you have a pair of speakers hooked up to your system, you can control the volume at which Windows plays various sounds.

Take a look at the Notifications area, at the right side of the Taskbar. You should see a small icon that looks like a speaker, with sound coming out of it. Click on the icon and you should see a volume control appear just above it. It may look similar to this on your system: (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The volume control for Windows.

The volume control looks like this on my Windows 2016 system: (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The volume control.

You can easily move the slider control up or down (or left to right) to adjust your volume (just click the slider with the mouse and then drag it). You can also, if you prefer, click the small speaker icon just below the volume control—the icon looks just like the speaker icon in the Notifications area. This icon controls muting of any audio, and you'll be able to easily see if your volume is muted completely or not.

 This tip (10798) applies to Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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