Hi,

One of the applications that *is* working is likely not terminating properly
or is staying in resident memory and is not releasing control of the sound
card. Hit ctrl+shift+escape and check on the processes tab, kill any that
might remain when not in use.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

"dell" <dellamir@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7P2dnTcI4N24VjPenZ2dnUVZ_tGdnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>I have a dell Inspiron 8600 lap top with windows xp - I've had it for a
>little over a year and the sound used to work just fine.
>
> Now I do not get system sounds, no sound in yahoo messenger and no sound
> in the microsoft pinball game that came with it, and no sound on the
> dvd/cd drive. All these things had sound a couple of weeks ago. Sound
> is not hugely important to me so I can't stay exactly when it stopped
> working. But I would like to watch the occasion dvd on my lap top.
>
> I *DO* have sound in real player, itunes and media player. So my
> speakers are working.
>
> Also the speaker icon has disappeared from the task bar sys tray. I
> checked all the settings and the option to put the icon in the sys tray is
> checked - but it's not there.
>
> Any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Maggie
>
>
>