ToTW: Change Sound Categories

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

TotW: Change Sound Categories

This one has something of a cryptic name... but all will become clear ;)

This tweak is especially for MoDaCo member 'ksts', who mentioned in a recent post that he would like to be able to prevent the 'low battery sound' waking him up at night (even in Silent Mode).

No longer need you be plagued by sounds not behaving as you expect with your profiles, or being in the wrong volume category.

This tweak is only tested on Smartphone devices (but should also work on Pocket PC Phone Edition!)

What does it do?

Just about every system sound on Windows Mobile belongs to a 'category'. Which category a sound is in determines how it's behaviour (such as volume) is controlled.

Well, this tweak shows you where the sound categories are held, where the sounds are held, and how you can change the categories.

How difficult is it?

This tweak involves Registry editing. So, it's pretty straightforward if you are comfortable editing the Registry, maybe not so easy if not.

Disclaimer: As with all registry changes, you should be very careful when applying this tweak. Edit the wrong thing, and you could break something pretty bad ;)

Of course, don't be too scared, you can always Hard Reset if you REALLY break something :D

What do I need to do it?

To apply this tweak, you need a tool that can edit the Registry on your phone.

I recommend (in this order...)

Mobile Registry Editor - This (free) application lets you edit your phone Registry from your PC - Click Here for details

Resco Explorer - This fantastic little (commercial) utility provides a top notch File Explorer on your phone, plus the all important Registry Editor - Click Here for details

PHM Registry Editor - This (free) utility is a standalone Registry Editor for your device - Click Here for details

How do I do it then?

Right!

To begin with, I am going to show you where the sound categories are held.

Spark up your Registry Editor of choice. I have included screenshots below using 'Resco Registry' on the Smartphone, but you'll see pretty much the same thing whatever you are using.

You will be presented with a screen that looks like the following:

Here you see a list of the 'Hives' in the Registry.

The Registry has a 'tree like' structure, which you can navigate by scrolling and clicking, and go back by hitting, well, back :P

Navigate yourself to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound Categories

Now you will see before you a list of the 'Sound Categories', on my phone they are Alarm, Attenuation, InCall, Notification, Reminder, Ring and System.

You don't want to edit anything in here, but it's useful for information.

Next, navigate yourself to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sounds

This is where things get interesting. You will be presented with a list of your system sounds.

If you select a particular sound, e.g. LowBattery, you'll see two values. The first is the category, and the second is the actual name of the sound file itself.

So, by editing these values, you can either change the category of the sound, or even change the sound itself ;)

For the LowBattery example, the sound is in the 'System' category. If you wanted it to silence when you turn notifications off, you would change the 'Category' to 'Notification' (look at the 'SMS' value if you want to see what it should look like!)

I hope this tweak is useful, please let me know! :D

And Finally...

All Done... Check back next Monday for another 'Tweak of the Week'!

:D

P

[Guest roma0803]

I like this Tweak of the Week idea, really. And I like this tweak. Thanks.

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

You're welcome ;)

P

[Guest pjft]

Hi Paul.

I'm amazed at the tweak you got there. ;)

I'm a newbie to the Pocket PC / Smartphone world, so I'll try not to look as dumb/naive as my post might sound :roll: ... but, in Windows Mobile 2003 SE there's no "System" sound category - at least not in mine :oops:...

In fact, I have "Attenuation", "Feedback", "InCall", "InCallFeedback", "Ring" and "RingPreview", as opposed to what you showed, and there isn't any "LowBattery" sound registered - nor a similar one - so... Guess the tweak won't be as linear here. Using PHM Registry Editor, and a Qtek S100 / I-Mate JAM ;)

Guess I'll have to try and find it out for myself, but the idea is great: I hate to have to manually silence the SMSs notification sound, and keep the PC volume up so I wake up with the Windows Alarm Clock :roll:

Congratulations on MoDaCo still - I'm going to browse around and see what else is interesting for me :P

Paulo Tavares

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

So what categories are the Alarm and SMS sounds in?

;)

P

[Guest pjft]

Well... That's just the weird thing: there are no "Alarm" nor "SMS"sounds registered under HKEY_Current_USer\ControlPanel\Sounds ...

There's

BusyTone,

CallDrop,

CallWaiting,

Dialing,

DialPadCtlKey,

Dtmf,

Ending,

Keypress,

LoudestInCallVolume,

QuietestInCallVolume,

RingPreview,

RingTone0,

StandardInCallVolume,

voicemail,

VoicePrivacyDrop,

VRecBeg and

VRecEnd...

...should I try to create them? ...it wouldn't be the first time I'd do something similar - had to create a registry entry too for the "Request message delivery notification" checkbox be on by default :roll: Though having a checkbox ticked by default and creating a "System" sound category are two different leagues :roll:

...though it makes no sense at all, I would be inclined to say that it might have something to do with extra software you have installed on your device - probably alarm software or something... No? :oops:

Sorry for not being quite constructive in my reply, but I'm really not familiar with this... yet :mrgreen: ...Day 4 today - and having a richer experience with MoDaCo ;)

Paulo Tavares

Edit: ...either this or this tweak is really only Smartphone-exclusive, and not Pocket PC version compatible. :|

Edited May 11, 2005 by pjft

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

That's very odd... and maybe becuase you are on a Pocket PC as you say! ;)

P

[Guest pjft]

Ok, no problem at all - it doesn't take any credit away from your tweak :P

If anyone manages to confirm this "Smartphone only" thingie, let us know...

In the meantime, I'll try to fiddle around, and if I happen to stumble on something similar to this for my situation, I'll definitely let you know ;)

You did the hard part, which was to point out the correct direction - I'll do the stumbling through the dark ;)

Paulo Tavares

[Guest henryc]

so How can we Tweak our SMS Sounds so that when we press anykey our ringtone will stop Just like other phones?

[Guest pjft]

I've experienced that behavior, but I'm not quite sure what makes it behave like that.

Have you tried different audio formats - wav, wma, mp3?

Are you using any sort of external application that somehow handles sound events and notifications - such as ATAlarm or other alarm applications...?

I noticed that while in preview mode, if having an App such as ATAlarm installed (not quite sure if it was this particular one, I had been trying out a couple of them...) the ringtone would not stop until it reached the end of file.

If I don't have any of those apps, though, windows handled the preview just right.

I would assume this behavior would also show in regular usage.

Is this the case?

Cheers,

Paulo Tavares

[Guest marcyspark]

I have tested wma and mp3 files - they work ok. They do have to be in the windows directory however.

Great - I got 24 ringtone as my sms notify - nice and loud too!

*** updated ***

The registry change is not retained by the phone - turning it off/on resets the registry change if you use an mp3 or wma file...

Any ideas? I was thinking of putting a cab file (with a tweak to make sure it doesnt delete after being run once) in the startup folder with a the registry change.... anybody got any comments/thoughts or better alternatives?

cheers!

Edited July 17, 2005 by marcyspark

[Guest johndoe23]

so How can we Tweak our SMS Sounds so that when we press anykey our ringtone will stop Just like other phones?

Anybody solve that problem??

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

It's not possible, it's a limitation with the OS.