Leaving the Mike ON

Troops:

I would like to set my microphone to ON and have it ON by default everytime I boot up the computer. What happens now is after I boot the mike is always found to be OFF and the LINE IN is ON. After the boot I must always reset the mike to ON. To do this I use the following procedure in WINDOWS XP:
Right click on the Loudspeaker icon and choose
OPEN VOLUME CONTROL -> OPTION->PROPERTIES->RECORDING->MIKE SELECT

Is there something I can do that would have the mike ON and leave it in that state?

David

 

Configure the Microphone through the Language Bar, Microphone. I honestly do not know if an On state can be made sticky.

There is a shortcut key to turn the microphone state on and off:

Windows logo key + V

I can think of one good reason for defaulting to the off state: if you leave it on and are not doing voice to text, or similar voice uses, it will drive your cursor all over the screen unpredictably.

 

Wild Bill:
Now I am miffed. It may be this system giving me a problem. When I select only to VIEW the microphone the system still boots up with the mike OFF regardless of how I left it. Not only that, suring any session once I turn it ON I cannot turn it OFF.

And your suggestion of controlling the mike with Windows logo key + V that does not work at all.

Also having the mike ON has no effect on the cursor (I even tried yelling into the mike)

This is a brand new system too. So I guess I go back to DELL and start to whine. I can imagine how far this is going to get me.

David

 

XP does not natively have a Speech Recognition Engine; one is included with Office.

The language bar is essentially an Office feature.

You need to enable the Language Bar, and enable its Voice to text controls, including Microphone.

Then the shortcut keys will work.

To configure the Language Bar and Windows XP Speech Settings

1. Open Control Panel.

2. Click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options, and then click Regional and Language Options.

3. Click the Languages tab.

4. Click the Details button. The Text Services and Input Languages dialog opens.

5. Clicking the Language Bar button allows you to configure how you want the Language Bar to appear, and to make Microphone settings.

And believe me, with an SRE (whether from Microsoft Office or a Third-party) installed, you will want the hot-key support to Turn On/Off the microphone.

 

Wild Bill: I finally wound my way through to the Language Options and I do not see anything referring to a microphone.
A bit more help here please.

David

 

Bill:

I looked all over my DESKTOP and bars and I cannot find anything referring to LANGUAGES there. Nor do I ever recall seeing any ICON or bar reference to this subject. I need some straightening out I guess.

David

 

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...docs/en-us/langbar_speech_mic_turn_onoff.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...oddocs/en-us/langbar_speech_mic_position.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306901

 

Perhaps there's a program of some sort that runs at startup that keeps switching it from mic to line-in. I have no idea what it would be but I'd have a look at the programs that are loading when windows starts and see if one of them uses the line-in. Seems to me there's a problem here. If I select the mic, it stays on the mic regardless of how many times I reboot or shutdown. Likewise, if I select line in, it'll retain that setting until I change it. I've tried several different things in an effort to duplicate this problem but except for one exception, I haven't been able to.

I have a VoIP (Skype) program and another program that I use for chatting with my family. If I start either of these, the record control will be set to mic by the program. There's no need for me to do it manually with those two programs. So, I would imagine that if I let either of them run at startup, my microphone would be selected each time I started windows even if it was set to something else when I last shutdown. It would be the opposite of the problem here but I mention it to show that a running program could be what's causing the change.

I don't have Word or any language bar so it would seem (at least from my setup) the mic should stay selected when the computer is rebooted.

 

Zander:
I appreciate your efforts in trying to get a handle on this mike problem.
When I start Skype or SightSpeed(which I prefer due to better video) neither turn on the mike when initiated.

I have to turn on the mike anytime I want to use it. I never find it in the ON state unless I do the turning ON.

About this Language bar. I am at a loss as to where it is. When I right click on the right side of the START bar I get a menu. When I choose TOOLBARS from this menu I see a listing. One item on this list is "Language bar ". It has a check mark before the listing. I do not see anything anywhere representing this choice. No icon blinks when I choose or unchoose this item. I have no idea as to where it might appear. I thought it would appear on this lower bar.

Any clues as to what is going on here?

David

 

Does Task Manager show ctfmon.exe running? This is the language bar process, and it should be in a running state.

Check:
Control Panel>Regional and Language>Details>(preferences)>Language Bar
checkmark: Show the language bar on the desktop
Optional, checkmark: show additional Language bar icons on the taskbar>OK

As for the On/Off status, it appears from Zander's comments that the mic setting is being controlled by an application, rather than XP.

 

Well, I had a look at Skype's options and there's a setting in there that makes it select the mic automatically. In Skype, click tools>options>sound devices. Put a check in the box that says let Skype adjust my sound device settings.

I tested this and if it's not checked, it won't change the record source to mic. With it checked, it does.

It's not an answer to why yours changes after rebooting but it'll get the job done in Skype. If you're one that lets Skype start when Windows starts, it should be set to the mic each time you start Windows. However, that's not really necessary since Skype will change it when you start it manually.

Still, there must be something that's changing it when you restart. I don't have Skype running at startup and mine keeps the setting that was selected when I shutdown windows. Regardless of what it's set too.

 

Bill:

I show the ctfmon.exe in the TASK MANAGER hence it is in the running state.
There are checkmarks on the showthe language bar icons on the desktop
There is a checkmark show Language bar icons on task bar.

Yet I do not see evidence of these things. ????

David

 

See "The Ostuni workaround "* and other suggestions by MS-MVP Hans-Georg Michna:
http://winhlp.com/WxSystray.htm

*This often works well, but I love the name.

 

Wild Bill:

OK. This is the end of the line. I read your reference. I know bad engineering when I see it and this is but another example of MS shortcomings. To attempt to fix this means I will be delving into typical MS black magic and I refuse to engage in such an unfruitful venture. This entire mike episode bespeaks about poor engineering.

This extends to that mysterious CD drive (F episode too.

I do thank you for your attention and help. You are doing your best to overcome some really poor programming.

David

 

Did you see my post above about setting the options in Skype?

 

Wild Bill:

I did see and followed your Skype recommendations. I rebooted and took a look at the microphone setting. It was OFF.

Need I say more? There is little that can be done when dealing with stupid programming.

David

 

Dr. Zander:

Yes I saw the options on SKYPE but that did not help either.

David

 

Well, I don't know what to say then. I've experimented a bit with this and this is what I've found here. I set that option in Skype. Then I close Skype, then open the record control and set it to line-in. Then, leaving the record control open, I start Skype and the record control immediately switches to mic with no intervention by me.

I don't know for sure but it sure seems like some program is hanging on to the control. Suspects would be any program that you have running all the time that you can use to record. Nero maybe? I don't know as I don't have it but it's just an example. I believe it has recording capabilities now and I know that Nero has things that run at startup. As I said, it's just an example but something like that.

Maybe you could try using Msconfig to turn off things that run at startup (if you haven't already done so). If it is an app that's the problem, perhaps you can run it down by doing that.

 

Dr. Zander:

Here is the answer to my question.

Remember I told you it always starts up with the LINE IN delected. It turns out I had a cassette tape recorder plugged into the LINE IN jack. If I remove this the stated problem disappears. With only a headset and mike plugged in it always starts up with the MIKE chosen.
It was doing exactly what it was intended to do. Apparently the LINE IN jack takes precedence.

End of that simple problem.

David Favin