On a Windows 7 machine, I would like to make changes to a Sound Scheme and have them affect all users on that machine.
I've found that if I log in as a user without administrative privileges, I can make changes to which sounds play on which events that persist for that user across logon sessions on that machine. However, those changes do not apply to other users on the same machine.
If I log on as a user with administrative privileges, what would I do to make a change that will apply, by default at least, to all users on the machine?
Best Answer
An alternative and reverse idea to the other more "proper" methods of changing a simple text file in the registry.
In my sytem I use revolving sounds , because repetition is not very fun. The method that i change the sounds with is to Rename the wave files to change the sound underneath the system, and the registry stays the same.
Renames are very fast operations, and after years of using such a odd method, I have not had a single problem (one missing file and you can guess what happens).
This is part of what one of the batch files looks like to change each boot, trimmed down to fit as an example.
I use another long batch and the task scheduler, to change the ~10 most repetitive sounds in the system hourly. No "for" loops, as you can see just raw simple renames.
I do not have multiple users, so I can only assume that a simple rename of a file everyone is pointing to would work in your case, and that a Copy or move would not be needed.
It was easier to organise a bunch of consecutive file items (001,002,003), than to work with a bunch of oddly named files even in a registry insert.
Notes:
I have to make copies of the whole media folder, before testing, get it all so it repeats many many times, check test, then I remove the extra backups knowing it is working.
From what I have seen in a regmon, The registry IS polled for the sounds every time, so changing the registry should do the same thing, a reboot or restart of the audio or shell should not be required, like it can be for other registry edits.
The reversing of that , I am trying to demonstrate here. To change the one file that you and the other users point to, instead of changing all the users registry pointers to that file.