Ted's Female Event Sounds For Windows 98 #2 (of 2)
Enclosed in this archive are 23 .wavs suitable for attaching to the various Microsoft-created components that come with Windows 98. (Many may be used in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 as well, although Windows 3.1 users will need a third-party sound hooking utility like Wired for Sound, Kaboom, or Icon Hear-It to use them effectively.) Each has been recorded in a professional recording studio by a pleasant female voice. All sounds were sampled at 22K in 16-bit mono and edited using Cool Edit Pro (www.syntrillium.com).
Windows 95/98 has the ability built-in to add Control Panel-activated sound hooks to any Windows program (.exe file) or screen saver (.scr file). (Windows 3.1x required a third-party sound hooking utility to do this.) The programs and screen savers can be either 16-bit or 32-bit. You can associate any .wav file on your system to an application's opening, closing, minimizing, menu command, and more. However, to do this, you need to edit the Windows 95/98 Registry.
Microsoft included a Registry editing utility with Windows 95/98. Even though there's no shortcut icon assigned to it by default, it's easy to find. The program is called REGEDIT and is located in the same folder Windows 95/98 is installed in (usually C:\WINDOWS). A quick way to get to it is to type REGEDIT in the Start Menu "Run" box.
BE FOREWARNED: If you don't know what you're doing, editing the Win95/98 Registry could really SCREW UP YOUR SYSTEM, even keeping it from restarting Windows 95/98. Always make a backup of all important files, including your Registry data. You can export your working Registry info to a text file by using REGEDIT, and restore it by importing this text file later. Anyway, be VERY CAREFUL when changing any information in the Registry. However, when done CORRECTLY, adding sound hooks to Windows 95/98 is relatively safe.
1. Using the Registry Editor's Explorer-like interface, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/AppEvents/Schemes/Apps
2. When this key is expanded, click on "Apps" (without quotes) to highlight it.
3. Click on the Registry Editor's pulldown menus. Click on Edit, New, and then Key.
4. You be presented with an editable highlighted line called "New Key #1." Type the name of the program or screen saver you want to add sound hooks to, WITHOUT the program extension. For instance, for NOTEPAD.EXE, type NOTEPAD. (You'll notice this process is similar to creating a new subfolder with Explorer.)
5. Again click on the Registry Editor's pulldown menus. Click on Edit, New, and then Key to add a key called "Open" (without the quotes) under the key you just added. For instance, if you used NOTEPAD, then the key would go under \NOTEPAD. (If you're a little confused, you can see how Windows 95/98 has already done this with Sound Recorder (SndRec32) or Media Player (MPlayer).
6. Besides the Open sound hook, you can install these other event sounds for Windows .exe files and screen savers:
Close
Minimize
Maximize
Restore Up
Restore Down
Default
Menu PopUp
Menu Command
Asterisk
Exclamation
Question
Program Error
Follow the instructions in #5 and substitute "Close" or "Default" (without quotes) for "Open" (without quotes). Of course, it would be silly to install anything else but the "Open" and "Close" sounds for a screen saver.
7. After you're finished editing the Registry, close the Registry Editor and go to the Windows 95/98 Control Panel and open up the Sounds section. If all went well, you'll find your new program sound hooks ready to associate with any .wav file on your system. Now you can have different sounds play for all your Windows programs and screen savers.
By the way, if you hate editing the Registry to add sound hooks (which can be tedious), then you should check out one of shareware author Greg Jones' two utilities that can help with the process. Wave Events is the best one, and it requires a small registration fee if you keep using it. The other is Sound Events Editor -- but while it's not as thorough and easy as Wave Events, it's free. Both can be found at www.waveevents.com or www.hotfiles.com.
Each sound may be freely distributed as long as no fee is charged for their use. I'm available to do custom recording; contact me at the address below for details.
Other Ted's original male and female voice collections are available at www.hotfiles.com.
