Windows Sound Driver Tweak

[bodidleysquat]

I haven't posted on this site in a long time, but just wanted to post this tweak that I discovered completely by accident. I've got a slightly older HP Core 2 Duo that runs Vista. I don't know how this tweak works on other OS's, but if you go into control panel>hardware and sounds>manage audio sounds>speakers>properties>advanced. There you'll see two check boxes "allow applications...." and "give exclusive....." that are checked by default. I unchecked these two boxes and clicked apply. I then had to reset my speakers to 5.1 as they defaulted back to stereo. I have an old Creative analog 5.1 speaker system. Low and behold the sound difference was night and day!

The bonus was the whole computer to seemed to just flat run better. I even got Aero to work, which was turned off because it slowed down my system. Anyway please try this tweak and let me know if it works for you. I'm really curious to know if it works on other computers and Win 7? This will not effect, and in fact improve your sound on 3rd party apps!

Another note: if you like this tweak, and you update certain drivers like NVIDIA video drivers, they will mess it up. Just go back into that advanced box and click restore defaults, click apply, uncheck those boxes again, then click apply again, then reset your speakers if needed.