Mute incoming IM alert sounds when viewing an IM conversation

Audio feedback is probably most useful when Lync is minimized or running in the background; after all, if you aren’t actively using the application you might not notice the visual "toast" that pops up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen announcing that you just received a new instant message. In that case, a gentle nudge – or, at the least, a little beep – might be very much appreciated.

On the other hand, you don’t necessarily need those audio reminders if you are actively using Lync. For example, if you are involved in an instant messaging session then you might not need to hear a beep each time you receive a new message; the fact that a new message has just shown up in the Conversation Window might be all the notification you require. If that’s the case, then you might want to configure Microsoft Lync so that no sounds are played whenever the Conversation Window is the active window on your desktop. (That is, any time you are involved in a conference or instant messaging session.)

To suspend sounds any time you are involved in a conference or instant messaging session, simply go to the Options dialog box and, on the Ringtones and Sounds tab, select the checkbox Mute incoming IM alert sounds when viewing an IM conversation:

Note that this setting only suspends sounds related to instant messaging. Other sounds – such as a notification that you have an incoming phone call – will still be played.

You can also configure this setting by modifying the registry value HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground. (Nice name, huh?) Set this value to 1 to suppress instant message sounds any time you are actively working in the Conversation Window; set this value to 0 to allow instant messaging sounds (such as the fact that you just received a new message) to be played at all times, even if the Conversation Window is currently in the foreground.

The following PowerShell script retrieves the current value of suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground from the local computer. If you'd prefer to retrieve this value from a remote computer, simply set the value of the variable $computer to the name of that remote computer. For example:

$computer = "atl-ws-001.litwareinc.com"

Here's the script we were just telling you about:

$computer = "."

$registry = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("CurrentUser", $computer)

$key = $registry.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator", $True)

$value = $key.GetValue("suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground",$null)

if ($value -eq 1) {$value = "Yes"}

if ($value -eq 0) {$value = "No"}

Write-Host "Mute incoming IM alert sounds when viewing an IM conversation: $value"

And here's a second script for you. This one sets the value of suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground. In this case, the script suppresses the sounds played when the Conversation Window is the active window; that's done by setting suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground to 1. If you'd rather hear sounds all the time, even when the Conversation Window is the active window, then set suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground to 0:

$key.SetValue("SuspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground",0,"DWORD")

Here's the script:

$computer = "."

$registry = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("CurrentUser", $computer)

$key = $registry.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator", $True)

$key.SetValue("suspendSoundWhenConversationWindowInForeground",1,"DWORD")