Hi kelso,

From reading your posts, it sounds like you might have already investigated what I'm about to say. Just in case you haven't, though ...

In Windows Vista when I right-click on the Speaker icon in the Taskbar and then choose Playback Devices, I am taken to the speaker settings (the back picture in the screen capture below). Now, if I right-click on Speaker and select Properties, I am taken to all the slider options for my soundcard. Some of these can be seen on the front picture in the below screen capture.



Sometimes I find that I have to go to these speaker settings, scroll through them and manually set each slider level to full volume (100%).

I've also discovered that every once in a while, the speaker for a particular setting has been muted. (In the diagram below, I've highlighted my muted MIDI.)



When this happens, I simply left-click on the speaker to activate the sound.

Regards,
Noel