Windows 10: How to mute audio with one click on the Desktop

I'm tired of these AV's starting up by themselves on my Browser. The sound is usually loud, unexpected and an intrusion on tranquility. Does anyone have a solution on how to very quickly mute the sound without having to open the audio app? Thank you!!

:)

 

Microphone keeps being muted.

I have a Dell Inspiron all-in-one desktop. Microphone keeps being muted and I cannot skype until I go into Dell Audio and in mute it. But that lasts for only a short time and it gets muted again. Cannot load Windows 10 microphone troubleshooter for
some unknown reason. Must be some kind of resource allocation problem ?

 

How do i boot Windows 10 with my computer on mute

Click the volume icon in the Taskbar then click Mute to left. This should mute any audio on start or log in.

If you are using a laptop, you can also mute the audio using the keyboard. Press Function key + F1 to F12 key, look for the block symbol.

 

I don't know about others but I got a nice moderately costly Microsoft multimedia keyboard with volume/mute keys, about as quick as anything. My MacBook Pro has similar keys.

 

Good suggestion but I should have mentioned that I'm using a laptop - keyboard built in.

 

Same here.

 

Notebooks/Laptops and larger Tablets usually have keys to do it. The downside to a shortcut on the desktop usually requires a double click. Using the Volume icon on the Notification Area a click/double-click to open then a click to adjust.

 

Yep! Left click Icon, click the little speaker.

 

I'm sure there's a way to place a shortcut on the desktop to accomplish this.

 

There is, but requires a teeny 3rd party app. Nircmd from Nirsoft. You would create a shortcut on the desktop with this as the target: nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 1

To un-mute:nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 0

NirCmd - Windows command line tool

 

My Toshiba laptop has a Fn key. When pressed, the ESC key acts as a speaker mute switch. Most of the top row of keys have a second function with the Fn key, F6/F7 are the brightness down/up controls and F8 turns the WiFi off, for example. Does your Dell Workstation M6800M6800 not have some something similar?

How-To Geek: How to Choose Whether Your Function Keys are F1-F12 Keys or Special Keys

 

My Dell Workstation doesn't seem to have that function.

As for NirSoft, how do I make a shortcut on the Desktop? Is it the same shortcut I would make to a URL - or do I have to add "run" to the command?

 

@Nisko

It's just a normal shortcut. Similar to a URL shortcut. Right click the desktop and follow thru with creating it. I put Nircmd in the C:\Windows directory for convenience so it's always in the path.





Next you browse to wherever you put Nircmd, my case Windows directory, and select the Nircmd.exe, then append the rest of the commad to it, like the last pic.

 

Thank you again. This works fine for me.

 

Depending on your browser you might want to consider stopping video playing automatically as well.

Stop HTML5 autoplay videos in Chrome, Firefox, Opera (but not Edge, Explorer, Safari) | PCWorld