Playing audio files through the sound card/mixer

In windows Vista how do you play music files through the sound card, only way
i can play music files in IM's or chat is to use the microphone in windows xp
you could go into the mixer and play files through the mixer or sound card
but i cant figure out how to do it in vista. Can it be done in vista or was
that option taken out and you can no longer do that ?

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:55:18 +0000, "Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]"
<neil@nospam.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 08:10:12 -0800, booboo64628
><booboo64628@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>In windows Vista how do you play music files through the sound card, only way
>>i can play music files in IM's or chat is to use the microphone in windows xp
>>you could go into the mixer and play files through the mixer or sound card
>>but i cant figure out how to do it in vista. Can it be done in vista or was
>>that option taken out and you can no longer do that ?


The Mixer in Vista was modified so each sound source has it's own
separate control. This page has details and decent screenshots of the
actions you need to take :

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.p...ording_sources

Note also the section about "Show disabled devices"

It's quite common for devices to be disabled by default, and therefore
not even visible on the list. Ensure you show disabled devices (right
click on the audio sources for that menu) so you can select from all
the available audio sources (hint : there will be a *lot* of them -
many more than I remember in XP !)

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs