Now pass the blame, and don't blame me

[venta]

Aaaargh! How hard can it be to get a new computer to shut up?

One of the first settings I hunted out when I got it was to set the Windows Personalised Sound Scheme (or whatever it's called) to "no sounds". Then I went back and found the extra ticky-box for "and don't play the bloody Windows start-up sound, either". Is wanting "no sounds" but still enjoying the start-up jingle really such a common use-case that you'd make it the default?

Then of course, I had to find the setting in Outlook to let it know that when it notifies me of an upcoming appointment, the pop-up window is just fine and I don't need the bingley-beep as well. I appreciate applications are different from the OS, but I still think Outlook could examine your system preferences and default to something more in line with expectations.

Anyway, having thus oppressed my laptop it is wreaking its revenge by sporadically ignoring the headphones. Despite them being firmly jammed into the socket, the wretched machine decides that it would rather play staunchly through the speakers. Which is why I treated the office to a good chunk of Rammstein's America a week or two back.

Following that, I got into the habit of checking carefully (low volume, start music with headphones not on my head) each morning. It didn't happen again. Until I got lax about checking, and the whole world got a nice burst of the intro riff to A13 Trunk Road To The Sea yesterday.

Bloody thing.

Still, on the plus side, the file-renaming behaviour on Windows 7 is much nicer than on XP.

Comments

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? You shut down your computer when you're not using it?

(to be fair, I have similar issues getting my iPhone to leave me in peace)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Of course not! I just have to reboot it every so often to get it to recognise the headphone socket, or indeed to desist with any of the other obscure behaviours it favours.

The broken window, TV set

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, the file-renaming behaviour is a real improvement. Wonder why it's taken them 30 years to think of it!

[venta.livejournal.com]

That was also a lyric contender for my subject line :) One kudo to you.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Could also have been: the longer the daylight, the less I do wrong? :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm perfectly capable of being mischievous regardless of light levels :p

[uitlander]

Madness I tell you!

[shermarama]

Windows is supposed to be moving in the direction of being more like a mobile phone these days, isn't it? I'm being reminded of a previous phone I had where the only way to get rid of most of the idiotic noises it made was to put it in silent mode, and then give silent mode a ringtone. And even then there were still one or two functions that made gratuitous noise.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think Windows 8 is more mobile-y (on account of crazy touch-screen interface), although rumour has it that 8.1 is veering sharply away from that again.

I've never really had a problem with getting phones to shut up. I'm kind of due a new one, though, so am now fearing The Beeping!