Stop the Ding! | The Coffeehouse

One of the most annoying things in Vista is that once you change your system sounds, applications will play the default sound (typically "Windows Ding.wav") every time you select an item in a listview control. Frankly, this was driving me to distraction and so I spent some time digging around and thought I would share here, in case anyone else was annoyed. My apoligies if this has already been posted elsewhere.

It turns out, it looks there's a bug in the Control Panel applet where you set your sound preferences. Even if you have the "Select" sound set to nothing, it's creating an entry (what is probably a null string) in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\CCSelect\.Current.

Because it's not actually a sound file, it reverts to the default sound. And, because the folks at Microsoft apparently want to make this as annoying as possible, if you disable the default sound, then it decides to do you the "favor" of beeping using your system speaker. Everyone on the Vista team should be forced to wear headphones and listen to an endless loop of "Windows Ding.wav" until a fix is published for this. I'm just saying.

In the meantime, here's a temporary fix in the form of a registry file. Note that you'll need to run this after every time you change your system sounds through the control panel, or the Ding from Hell™ will return:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\CCSelect]
@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\CCSelect\.current]
@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\CCSelect\.Default]
@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\CCSelect\.Modified]
@=""

Rich2k

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was soooo frustrating using WS_FTP and it ding'ing every time I selected a folder or file!

mstefan

Rich2k wrote:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was soooo frustrating using WS_FTP and it ding'ing every time I selected a folder or file!

That was one of my motivations for fixing this. I had just upgraded to the latest version of WS_FTP which is now supported on Vista. As soon as you change the default sounds (I can't believe they still use that bizzare sound scheme of train whistles and "uhoh!" noises) this started manifesting itself. The same with some other applications that I use.

Bas

mstefan wrote:

(I can't believe they still use that bizzare sound scheme of train whistles and "uhoh!" noises)

Is it just me, or did they completely rip that off from ICQ? I was uh-ohing and train whistling with ICQ back in 1997, when nobody even heard of WS_FTP. Or are these public domain sounds, or something?

mstefan

Bas wrote:

Is it just me, or did they completely rip that off from ICQ? I was uh-ohing and train whistling with ICQ back in 1997, when nobody even heard of WS_FTP. Or are these public domain sounds, or something?

You're right, it's the same sounds. As to whether they "borrowed" them from ICQ, I can't say. If I had to hazard a guess, developers from both groups probably found them in the public domain.

I've already sent them feedback asking that they just use the standard Windows sounds available on the platform that they install on. What they're using sounds really harsh, particularly with Vista's mellow sound scheme.

AndyC

Bas wrote:

Is it just me, or did they completely rip that off from ICQ? I was uh-ohing and train whistling with ICQ back in 1997, when nobody even heard of WS_FTP. Or are these public domain sounds, or something?

Unless they've changed them, the uh-oh sound was illegally lifted from PC Lemmings....