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How to turn off the beep sound in a virtual machine in Virtual Server 2005

Article ID: 838671 - View products that this article applies to.

INTRODUCTION

This article describes how to turn off the beep sound that a virtual machine generates every time that an operating system event occurs. For example, if you try to log on to a virtual machine by using incorrect credentials, the virtual machine operating system generates a beep sound.

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MORE INFORMATION

To turn off the beep sound, use one or more of the following methods.

Method 1: Turn off the beep sound on a particular virtual machine

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ )

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To stop a virtual machine from generating a beep sound when an operating system event occurs, follow these steps:

On the virtual machine, click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Beep
In the right pane, right-click Start, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 4 to turn off the beep sound, and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the virtual machine.

Note You can also follow these steps to turn off the beep sound on the host computer. In this scenario, the beep sound is also turned off for all guest operating systems.

Method 2: Turn off the Beep service

You can turn off the Beep service in Microsoft Windows XP or in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. To do this, type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

sc config beep start= disabled

Note You must include the space after the equal sign (=).

To turn the beep sound back on, type the sc config beep start= command together with one of the following startup types:

boot
system
auto
demand

Method 3: Stop the Beep service

You can stop the Beep service by using the Net command. However, in this scenario, the service automatically restarts when you restart the virtual machine or when you restart the host computer. To stop the Beep service, type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

net stop beep

To start the Beep service, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

net start beep

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