Disable iTunes 8 sound effects

It's a good question. And it only seems to happen in Vista. Their are a couple other threads on this with no answers yet. The Mac and Win XP people think we're crazy since it doesn't exist at all outside of Vista, not even as an option. It doesn't seem to be a part of Vista's system sounds either, this is just iTunes.

Grumble. below are the other threads I've seen on this.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1701179
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1701605

I have been upset by this, too. Windows wrongly assumes that we must enjoy these annoying sounds and I have gone to great lengths to turn them all off, only to be stumped by this one in iTunes. Why, Apple, Why?

That noise is the "page completely loaded" noise for the new support for accessibility for the blind. (The Mac has it too as part of VoiceOver which is built into the OS.) It's only supposed to happen when you have a screen reader running.

Do you have a screen reader running? Some software development tools like AccEvent or AccExplorer or tools for scripting the UI trigger this as well.

What applications do you have running on your system when you get the weird noise from iTunes?

Tabtip32!!

*TabletInputService to be more exact, the hand writing input service for Windows. If I stop this service iTunes keeps quiet.*

The tablet still works for Photoshop, as its drivers are still active, but not the system level writing recognition. Which is acceptable for me - though I prefer it on - but it's crappy for those actually using a tablet PC and iTunes.

I turned it off by right clicking on 'My Computer' and selecting 'Manage'. From there I selected the services panel and found 'Tablet PC Input Service', right clicked that and got properties. From there I stopped the service and set it to only start manually.

This works for me (kinda), but iTunes really shouldn't be activating sound feedback designed for the visually impaired because the pen input service is started. Seems like a bug to me.

Anyway, thanks for the hints everybody.

GAAA!

Dang it! It also makes the stupid sounds when I have speech recognition turned on. I have RSI and need that feature, unlike writing recognition.

Stupid iTunes. I'm not blind, my dang wrists just hurt. I don't need all yer fwip fwip fwip nonsense.

I thought I had this solved. ;(

Grrr.

You know, speech recognition software I would expect to tap into an application via user automation, but that tablets and the Microsoft Ink APIs, THAT is a surprise to me. You can just close the genius side bar, (there's a button in the lower right that does this) and the noises should go away when you're not in the store and you will still have genius playlists.

On the plus side, does this mean that you can now use the speech recognition app to navigate iTunes?

Sadly no. Using speech in the iTunes search box will work once, but it causes the memory use of the speech service to explode (up to 4GB) and become unresponsive until iTunes is quit, and the speech service will continue to hover around 1.5GB of ram until it's restarted too.

Because of this I haven't really tested how well speech works with other aspects of iTunes. Which is too bad, since the voice recognition features of Vista are surprisingly good.

It makes the whole 'Services for the Vision Impaired' stuff that's causing these irritating sounds a bit laughable, since iTunes doesn't really work with voice navigation either, an important tool for the blind.

After booting and starting Itunes, I found no woosh sounds. However, when I started the JAWS screen reader, this sound also started. Exiting JAWS however, did not stop the wooshes. Apparently, there's some cleanup that JAWS is not performing when it exits. Window Eyes (another screen reader) seems to work correctly though. The sound comes when it's running, and stops when the software is terminated.

Tom Hesley

Sound effects? What sound effects? What are you doing with the UI when you get a sound effect? Do you have an custom OS theme turned on?

I'm getting the effects with XP. Very annoying.

XP Tablet version has that annoying sound too!

Actually I'm using XP Pro Tablet Edition too.

has anyone figured this out yet? it is driving me crazy!!

Yeah, I'm also getting it. It is such a horribly annoying noise. I've started renting more things on the 360 instead because I hate that annoying noise.

- Sosh

Disable: "TabletInputService"

This WORKS! Thanks a thousand times over. My "iTunes" experience was heading South in a big way as this annoying sound made browsing a nagging nightmare.