Sound changes in IE8.

[johnhc]

I noticed that IE8 on my VM and my new hardware the pop-up sound played very quiet or nonexistent. I chased it down and found that IE8 uses the Windows sound files instead of the Windows XP files. These are present in the IE8.cab and are reflected in the .inf file. My older system has a rather loud pop-up and information bar sound and I guess when IE8 was installed over IE7, the sounds were not changed. When IE8 is installed before IE7, it must install its sounds. I can hear these sounds if I turn my speaker volume up all the way, but not when at a normal level or with other things playing (radio, etc). I suspect this is not a big deal for most, but I had become dependent on the sound to alert me to the bar at the top, so I was missing them on my new machine. I found the Registry keys and exported them from my old machine and they correct the problem. Here is a .reg file from my XP x64 system:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\BlockedPopup\.Current]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
  00,5c,00,6d,00,65,00,64,00,69,00,61,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,\
  77,00,73,00,20,00,58,00,50,00,20,00,50,00,6f,00,70,00,2d,00,75,00,70,00,20,\
  00,42,00,6c,00,6f,00,63,00,6b,00,65,00,64,00,2e,00,77,00,61,00,76,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\SecurityBand\.Current]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
  00,5c,00,6d,00,65,00,64,00,69,00,61,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,\
  77,00,73,00,20,00,58,00,50,00,20,00,49,00,6e,00,66,00,6f,00,72,00,6d,00,61,\
  00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,20,00,42,00,61,00,72,00,2e,00,77,00,61,00,76,00,\
  00,00

It is hard to see what is going on in this format, but the sound file %SystemRoot%\media\Windows XP Information Bar.wav is replacing the one without the XP. If you are interesting is hearing the difference, go to the media folder and right click the files and select Play. Enjoy, John.

[Guest]

Internet Explorer 8's installer for XP x64 sets the new sounds when installing over IE6. When I was testing the first builds of my addon those keys were not set with any sounds. The new IE8 files slipstreamed in the source were not setting those keys, and IE and Windows Explorer were both silent. It was necessary for me to hard code those entries in my INF after figuring out where the settings were being kept.

Adding the following lines to the IE8 Tweaks addon will restore the original IE6 sound keys for every user.

HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\BlockedPopup\.Current",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Pop-up Blocked.wav"
HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\BlockedPopup\.Default",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Pop-up Blocked.wav"
HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Start.wav"
HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Default",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Start.wav"
HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\SecurityBand\.Current",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Information Bar.wav"
HKCU,"AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\SecurityBand\.Default",,0x20000,"%%SystemRoot%%\media\Windows XP Information Bar.wav"

Or, you can use the following IE6Sound addon if you're not using my IE8 addon.

IE6Sound_Addon.7z

Edited November 23, 2010 by xper

[johnhc]

5eraph, thanks for your reply. I should have known you were on top of this. I will add your code to my IE8 Tweaks the next time I update it. Have you listened to Windows XP Start.wav? The volume is so low I cannot hear it unless I run my speaker full blast. When is the Navigating sound used? Thanks, John.

[Guest]

The Navigating sound is used in Windows Explorer (My Computer) when moving between folders. It's used in IE whenever you click a link, or use the Forward or Back buttons.

As often as I'm playing around with files and folders, if the sound were much louder it would get on my nerves.