{"id":3148,"date":"2013-07-28T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2013\/07\/28\/weekend-scripter-cheesy-script-to-set-speaker-volume\/"},"modified":"2013-07-28T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T00:01:00","slug":"weekend-scripter-cheesy-script-to-set-speaker-volume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/weekend-scripter-cheesy-script-to-set-speaker-volume\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Scripter: Cheesy Script to Set Speaker Volume"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Set the speaker volume by using Windows PowerShell—the cheesy script way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is still the weekend, and that means I get a chance to play. Speaking of playing…<\/p>\n

Yesterday the Scripting Wife and I were at the horse show in Ashville. For us, it was play. For the people participating in the show, it is very serious business. Anyway, I got to see my favorites: the Roadster Ponies. These little dudes are quick and fun to watch. Here is a cool picture I took:<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, speaking of cool…<\/p>\n

Here is a cheesy script I wrote on the way back home for setting the volume of my speakers.<\/p>\n

There is always a right way, a wrong way, a Windows PowerShell way, and a cheesy way to do things. The exact method I choose to do something depends on my personal use-case scenario. For something like setting speaker volume, I want to be able to programmatically set my volume to maximum or to minimum when I am listening to Internet radio, watching a video, or on a conference call.<\/p>\n

Why is the script cheesy? Well, because it uses the old-fashioned SendKeys<\/strong> method from the old VBScript WshShell object. SendKeys<\/strong> can be very unreliable, and is not really recommended for automation solutions. But for something like this, it works just fine.<\/p>\n

So why cheesy in the first place? Well, because really automating sound requires some heavy duty excursions into native code. A good example is a script by JRV in the Script Center Repository: PowerShell Set PC Volume Control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what does my script do?<\/p>\n

I wrote a function that I can call from wherever I am in the Windows PowerShell environment. Obviously, I could not call it Set-Volume<\/strong> because that is already a CIM function in Windows 8 that deals with storage. So I called it Set-SpeakerVolume<\/strong>. The heart of the function is where I use SendKeys<\/strong> to send [char]174<\/strong> (the down volume key on my laptop) or [char]175<\/strong> (the up volume key on my laptop). <\/p>\n

By experimentation, I figured out that each key press raised or lowered the volume by two. Therefore I use the 1..50 array to send 50 key presses. The [char]173<\/strong> key displays only the volume arrow, and it does not raise or lower the volume. I set this as the default action of the function so I can quickly see what the current volume is set to, as shown in the following image:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

The complete Set-SpeakerVolume<\/strong> function is shown here:<\/p>\n

Function Set-SpeakerVolume<\/p>\n

{ Param (<\/p>\n

  [switch]$min,<\/p>\n

  [switch]$max)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  $wshShell = new-object -com wscript.shell<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  If ($min)<\/p>\n

  {1..50 | % {$wshShell.SendKeys([char]174)}}<\/p>\n

  ElseIf ($max)<\/p>\n

  {1..50 | % {$wshShell.SendKeys([char]175)}}<\/p>\n

  Else<\/p>\n

  {$wshShell.SendKeys([char]173)} }<\/p>\n

Hope you are having a great day, and join me tomorrow for a new week on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog. Until then, take care.<\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Peace.<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Set the speaker volume by using Windows PowerShell—the cheesy script way. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is still the weekend, and that means I get a chance to play. Speaking of playing… Yesterday the Scripting Wife and I were at the horse show in Ashville. For us, it was play. For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[438,439,440,3,61,45],"class_list":["post-3148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-audio","tag-com","tag-media","tag-scripting-guy","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Set the speaker volume by using Windows PowerShell—the cheesy script way. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is still the weekend, and that means I get a chance to play. Speaking of playing… Yesterday the Scripting Wife and I were at the horse show in Ashville. For us, it was play. For […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}