How do I tell if the master volume is muted?

Question

I am using the following to mute/unmute the master audio on my computer. Now, I am looking for a way to determine the mute state. Is there a just as easy way to do this in C#?

    private const int APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_MUTE = 0x80000;
    private const int WM_APPCOMMAND = 0x319;
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    public static extern IntPtr SendMessageW(IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);

Check this question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/294292, in the accepted answer exist a method called `IsMuted` — RRUZ, Dec 30 '10 at 02:55
Yes, it appears to be the answer. As stated in the comments, it only works when compatibility mode is enabled. — John_Sheares, Dec 30 '10 at 04:38

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 18 '13 at 06:50

Hi just stumbled accross this old topic, but wa shaving the exact same issue.

I solved using the following:

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

...

[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
static extern IntPtr SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, UInt32 Msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);


private const int APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_MUTE = 0x80000;
private const int APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_UP = 0xA0000;
private const int APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_DOWN = 0x90000;               
private const int WM_APPCOMMAND = 0x319;        

...

// mute (toggle)
SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_APPCOMMAND, this.Handle, (IntPtr)APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_MUTE);


// unmute
SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_APPCOMMAND, this.Handle, (IntPtr)APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_UP);
SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_APPCOMMAND, this.Handle, (IntPtr)APPCOMMAND_VOLUME_DOWN);

Mute will not always mute the audio, it's a toggle - but if you make sure to call "unmute" first you should be golden.

Best regards Kurt

Nice. That was quite clever. I am using it for my small open source project to mute the system volume when Windows is locked. https://github.com/dthompsonza/MuteOnLock — Dave Thompson, Feb 22 '16 at 12:15
This is actually not an answer. The question was "How do I tell if the master volume is muted?", which is not answered here. — Matyas, Mar 07 '16 at 08:04
This literally answers the question, but it requires that you modify the state to know it. The answer is always "no" with this solution. From there you can choose to change it or not. Of course this is only useful for some use cases. — DAG, Jan 07 '20 at 17:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 30 '10 at 02:47

Checkout the following tutorial. I've never played with the Mixer in C# ( or any other language ) so I'm assuming they are correct in P/Invoking the Win32 APIs and that they aren't reinventing the wheel. You can download the example and I think the method GetMixer() will do what you want.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 31 '10 at 01:34

0

Credit to RRUZ in comments above. See stackoverflow.com/questions/294292. The only problem is that you need compatibility mode.

answered Dec 31 '10 at 01:34

John_Sheares

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How do I tell if the master volume is muted?

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