Many keyboards, on notebooks at least, have special Vol+, Vol- and Mute buttons. I recently bought a USB speaker and Vol+ and Vol- have no effect, except to display the normal volume bar. (Strangely Mute still works although the only way to unmute is to use a Vol button which in other ways doesn't work.)
I installed a freebie, Sound Volume Hotkeys, which is really nice for what it does -- provide shortcuts Win+Up and Win+Down to control volume and display a different, but quite nice volume bar.
But it's annoying not to be able to use the special purpose keys and especially since they still have to be used for unmute.
Is there any way for software to see the pushing of Vol+ and Vol- to be able to make this work nicely? The controls they need to change are those displayed in Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Volume. I have no idea where the volume level displayed in the volume feedback bar is stored. Basically THAT number should get fedback to the Windows volume value.
PS If a coding snack could do this, there is one more think which would be handy. When switching between the USB speaker to the built-in one (or unplugging the USB speaker), the definition of what speaker to use must be manually changed in Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Audio -> Sound playback. What a drag! You'd think the system would be smart enough that if the USB speaker is plugged in, I want to use it, and if not, I want to use the built in. As it is I can be left with no sound at all. Either automating this or, at least, providing an easy shortcut to be given the choice would be great.
As usual, many thanks -- Vincent
