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system and let Windows install the card’s drivers. This applies to expansion cards and onboard sound. As you might expect by now, you’ll probably have a choice between the built-in Windows drivers and the driver that comes on a CD-ROM with your sound card. Just as with other cards, it’s always best to install the driver that comes with the card. All sound devices have easy-to-use autorun-enabled installation CD-ROMs that step you through the process (Figure 20-14).

Figure 20-14 Typical autorun screen for a sound card

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NOTE Sound card drivers are updated occasionally. Take a moment to check the manufacturer’s Web site to see whether your sound card has any driver updates.

You might also run into one of the many USB sound cards out on the market (Figure 20-15), in which case the installation process is reversed. The only secret to these devices is to follow the important rule of all USB devices: Install the drivers before you plug in the device. Windows, especially Windows XP and Vista, probably have basic drivers for these USB sound cards, but don’t take a chance—always install the drivers first.

Figure 20-15 USB sound card

After your sound card and driver are installed, make a quick trip to the Device Manager to ensure that the driver was installed correctly, and you’re two-thirds of the way there. Installing the driver is never the last step for a sound card. Your final step is to configure the sound card by using configuration programs and test it by using an application. Most sound cards come with both special configuration programs and a few sound applications on the same CD-ROM that supplies the drivers. Take a look at these extra bits of software that I call sound programs.

Installing Sound Programs

You’ve already seen that you need a program to play sounds on your PC: Windows Media Player, Winamp, or something similar. But several other classes of sound programs also reside on your computer: programs for the configuration of your sound card—tools built-into Windows as well as proprietary tools—and special applications that may or may not come with your sound card.

Windows Configuration Applications Every Windows computer comes with at least one important sound configuration program built right into the operating system: the Control Panel applet called Sound in Windows Vista, Sounds and Audio Devices in Windows XP, or Sounds and Multimedia in Windows 2000. Whatever the name, this applet (or applets) performs the same job: it provides a location for performing most or all of the configuration you need for your sound card. Consider the Sounds and Audio Devices applet in Windows XP, for example; the Sounds and Multimedia applet in Windows 2000 works roughly the same, although it may have one control or another in a different place.

The Sounds and Audio Devices applet has five tabs: Volume, Sounds, Audio, Voice, and Hardware. The Volume tab is the most interesting. This tab adjusts the volume for the speakers, and it allows you to set up the type of speaker system you have, as shown in Figure 20-16.

Figure 20-16 Advanced Audio Properties dialog box

The Sounds tab allows you to add customized sounds to Windows events, such as the startup of a program or Windows shutdown. The Audio tab (Figure 20-17) and Voice tab do roughly the same thing: they allow you to specify the device used for input and output of general sounds (Audio tab) and voice (Voice tab). These settings are handy for folks like me who have a regular microphone and speakers, but also use a headset with microphone for voice recognition or Internet telephone software. By telling Windows to use the microphone for normal sounds and to use the headset for voice recognition, I don’t have to make any manual changes when I switch from listening to an MP3 to listening to my brother when he calls me over the Internet.

The Hardware tab isn’t used very often, but it does have one interesting feature: it shows you all of the audio and video codecs installed in your system. (See the section on “Missing Codecs” later in this chapter