Get rid of the annoying Windows XP or Vista System Beeps

Yea, we've all heard the annoying beeps that your computer can make to remind you that you aren't pressing the right key or clicking the right button. After a while they are pretty annoying! There's really two sets of beeps, one that is a sound from your soundcard (the easy one to turn off), and the PC speaker beep, which is annoying and every time it goes off it scares my friend and co-worker Guy Fugate. (I almost don't want to tell him how to turn it off cause it's funny to watch him jump at least once per day)

First the more difficult to attack, but more annoying, PC speaker beep...

Open Device Manager by right-clicking on My Computer and choosing Properties, then on the Hardware tab you'll find the button for Device Manager.

Select View \ Show hidden devices from the menu.

Find Non-Plug and Play Drivers in the list, and then right-click on Beep and choose Disable:

When it prompts you to reboot, select no, and then right-click again and choose Properties this time. On the Driver tab, change the Startup Type to Disabled and then click the Stop button if its not grayed out.

This should disable the system beep speaker.

This helps kill the beeps, remove it from the registry!

In anything but Windows Vista simply click the Start button, then choose Run, and type regedit and press ENTER.

In Windows Vista click the Windows Logo button at the bottom right, in the text area on the menu type regedit and press ENTER.

Then navigate down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound

Find the Beep key on the right-hand side and change the value to no OR you can download this REG file and apply it by double-clicking it.

Kill the Windows WAV file ding or beep...

Click Start and choose to open the Control Panel, find and open the Sounds and Audio Devices panel, choose the Sounds tab and then find Default Beep in the list.

Change the Sounds drop-down on the bottom to (None) and then click Apply. This should disable the volume control beep.

You'll want to also change Critical Stop to (None) as well, and should probably also turn off some of the other items the same way at your preference.