Enable or Disable Speakers in Windows 7

**pratham** · 04-22-2009, 07:05 AM

How to Enable or Disable Speakers in Windows 7?

If you disable the speakers then the users will not be able to hear any kind of sound even when the speakers are plugged in.

To accomplish this follow these steps:

1) Open Control Panel (All items view)and double click the Sound icon.

Figure 1

2) In the Sound window you will notice the Speakers and other audio devices connected under Playback tab.

Figure 2

3) Now click on Speakers and then click Properties button as highlighted above.

4) In the Speaker Properties dialog box select Use this device to enable Speakers in the Device usage dropdown list at the bottom.

Figure 3

OR

Select Don’t use this device to disable Speakers in the Device usage dropdown list as shown in the above figure.

5) Click Apply and then OK button

Note: Once you disable the speakers they will no more be visible on the Sound window as shown below.

Figure 4

Thus to view them and to enable them right click on the Sound window and select the option Show Disabled devices as shown above to view the disabled speakers. To enable them go to step 4.

**bushmanjs** · 11-17-2010, 02:23 PM

Thank you, this was very helpful!

I accidentally disabled my headset while trying to figure out how to have my main speakers function while using my headset with Skype. It was only playing sound through the headset when I plugged it in.

Not sure if it is covered elsewhere on this forum, but it might be helpful to others that find this particular post... To accomplish what I mentioned above, I simply right clicked my main speakers and made them the "Default Device"... then right clicked my headset speakers and made them the "Default Communications Device".

there's also a setting in Skype to "ring on all devices" which I've activated, but I find that in the 4 years I've been using Skype, many of those functions work whether it's clicked or not !?!

Hope that helps somebody!

**helroy** · 06-22-2011, 08:47 PM

Thank you... This was really helpful.. I was trying to figure out how to enable it.. then after reading this post I realised I had to right click and set it to show disabled devices first...
Cheers!