Thread: Create a shortcut or hotkey to mute/unmute the system volume in windows

Create a shortcut or hotkey to mute/unmute the system volume in windows

Have you ever had music playing loudly on your speakers when the phone rings... then you fumble for the speaker switch or the pause button on your music playing application while trying to answer the phone? Instead of bothering with that I've simply created a shortcut to mute/unmute the system volume instantly with the press of a hotkey.

Of course this isn't helpful if you have a multimedia keyboard with a mute button onboard, but some computers just don't have one.

Create a shortcut

In order to mute/unmute the system volume, we'll use a tiny utility called NirCmd. It's a swiss army knife of useful shortcuts.

1. Download nircmd from nirsoft and save it to anywhere you want.

2. Right click on the desktop and choose New > Shortcut from the menu.



3. In the location box, browse down to the location you saved nircmd.exe, and then add "mutesysvolume 2" as arguments.



Note: the "2" argument tells nircmd to toggle mute, so if you use the shortcut or hotkey again, it will untoggle.

4. Give the shortcut a useful name like "Toggle Mute" and hit finish.



5. Open up the properties of the shortcut. Here you can assign a shortcut key. I've assigned the shortcut key to F10 instead of the two key combo.



6. You can also change the icon to something else. I found the speaker icon in the following file.

%SystemRoot%\System32\SndVol.exe



Remember when using a shortcut key, you'll want to keep the shortcut on the desktop or move it to the start menu. The shortcut key don't seem to work when the shortcut is in the quick launch menu. Just drag n drop the shortcut to start menu.





Now, you have a shiny new shortcut to mute or unmute the system volume.



P.S. It works perfectly in windows xp, vista or 7.

Strange tutorial... but i like it :)
Good job mate

Sam

Originally Posted by Sam91

Strange tutorial... but i like it :)
Good job mate

Sam

It's really useful if you don't have a multimedia keyboard. Glad you like it mate. :001_smile:

u can also create a short cut of your sound on your desktop by coping it from control panel. I did this because switch from the sound on my TV when i watch a movie from my PC to TV alot.