Q2007 Sounds

Bert wrote: My Reg file is identical to yours. What does that mean? What reg file are you speaking of? My "reg file" is an export from my registry (plus an editing of it to eliminate the wav file name). What is set in your registry (not your reg file). If it's blank then it should show as "none" in the Control Panel applet.

-- Andrew DeFaria Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?

Run Regedit and expand the tree until you get to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Quicken\Open Program\.Current. That's what's called the registry key. As you state the value is set to qopen.wav. On the right side of Regedit you should see that value. Double click the (Default) under the name column and you'll see a dialog box that has and edit box stating Value Data. Blank that out and click OK.

If that complains tell us the complaint. If it works, test by starting Quicken. If it just doesn't take or if it complains try right clicking on the key in the tree on the left and selecting Permissions. If your user ID in the list of Group or user names? What access do you have? If necessary add your login name and give it full control. Then go back and try to change the value to "" again.

Really?!? There are literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands of registry entries in your registry. Each have ACLs. You've checked them all through regedit by right clicking on each and every one and checking the permissions dialog box?!? I find that very difficult to believe.

Again, perform the above actions and get back to us...

As an aside, if you make a little .reg file like I did you'd see that Windows associates .reg files with regedit. Running regedit will simply merge the registry entries into your registry prompting first. You can run regedit /s to suppress the prompt. This action will run as the user running the reg file subject to the access level and permissions of that user.

Bert wrote: My account most definitely has admin privileges.

My reg file info:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Quicken\Open Program\.Current HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Quicken\Open Program\.Default

Both of these have entries pointing to the qopen.wav file (even after attempting to turn it off via Control Panel | Sounds. Run Regedit and expand the tree until you get to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Quicken\Open Program\.Current. That's what's called the registry key. As you state the value is set to qopen.wav. On the right side of Regedit you should see that value. Double click the (Default) under the name column and you'll see a dialog box that has and edit box stating Value Data. Blank that out and click OK.

If that complains tell us the complaint. If it works, test by starting Quicken. If it just doesn't take or if it complains try right clicking on the key in the tree on the left and selecting Permissions. If your user ID in the list of Group or user names? What access do you have? If necessary add your login name and give it full control. Then go back and try to change the value to "" again.

I also have 3 sound schemes, and even saved one as my "Custom Theme" to try and edit it from there - no luck.

I have tried changing all sounds with Quicken, and they all yield the same results.

I checked my permissions and my account is set for Full Control over all of the reg entries.

Really?!? There are literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands of registry entries in your registry. Each have ACLs. You've checked them all through regedit by right clicking on each and every one and checking the permissions dialog box?!? I find that very difficult to believe.

I would be very curious to see if anyone else running XP and Q2007 is having the same issue.

Again, perform the above actions and get back to us...

As an aside, if you make a little .reg file like I did you'd see that Windows associates .reg files with regedit. Running regedit will simply merge the registry entries into your registry prompting first. You can run regedit /s to suppress the prompt. This action will run as the user running the reg file subject to the access level and permissions of that user.

-- Andrew DeFaria There are 3 kinds of people in this world. Those who can count and those who can't.

You may not be able to manually edit the registry. That's why you should try. You may get an error message and that would explain what the problem is. You could always send it back.

I fail to see how this would be a Quicken problem at all from a programmers standpoint. Quicken has a toggle for sounds or no sounds. If sounds are set on then Quicken looks up in the registry via that key and plays that sound for the specific events. Outside of that it's not a Windows issue.

If the Control Panel: Sounds applet cannot change the registry entry I would have hoped it would at least be smart enough to alert the user. But it's quite possible that it doesn't check the error return after calling SetRegistryKey (or whatever the function call is).

The Control Panel and the Sound applet are MS code. If they're not working properly then talk to MS. Quicken is not involved here.

Yes it would be nice if others chimed in. I would but I don't have Q2007 and right now I'm busy with a move to Dallas...

Really? Because I don't know of any definitive list of all Quicken registry values. You are tenacious if nothing else.

Again, if you have full permissions to modify the registry values then it makes no sense to me why the Control Panel: Sounds applet cannot do likewise - yet you say it fails to change the value. All of this is outside of Quicken.

Bert wrote: Sorry to not be clear.... The only entries in my registry that point to the qopen file were the two entries that you spoke of that were in your registry.

I realize that I can manually edit the registry to resolve the issue, or that I could rename or delete the qopen.wav file, but that still wouldn't explain to me if it is a Windows issue, or a issue that has been introduced with Q2007. You may not be able to manually edit the registry. That's why you should try. You may get an error message and that would explain what the problem is. You could always send it back.

I fail to see how this would be a Quicken problem at all from a programmers standpoint. Quicken has a toggle for sounds or no sounds. If sounds are set on then Quicken looks up in the registry via that key and plays that sound for the specific events. Outside of that it's not a Windows issue.

If the Control Panel: Sounds applet cannot change the registry entry I would have hoped it would at least be smart enough to alert the user. But it's quite possible that it doesn't check the error return after calling SetRegistryKey (or whatever the function call is).

The Control Panel and the Sound applet are MS code. If they're not working properly then talk to MS. Quicken is not involved here.

Thanks for your suggestions and offering to help, but I am still trying to determine if this issue is isolated to me, or if others running Q2007 are experiencing the same thing. Yes it would be nice if others chimed in. I would but I don't have Q2007 and right now I'm busy with a move to Dallas...

-- Andrew DeFaria Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

Jerry Boyle wrote: Bert,

Could you confirm whether or not the account you use has administrator privileges (Control Panel -> User Accounts then look for "Computer administrator" under the account name). If it does, that would definitely eliminate any update permission issues.

I'm still not totally convinced that this isn't a Q2007 issue, especially after Bert's latest response. Has anyone who has Q2007 running under Windows XP confirmed that they can turn off the qopen sound? If not, could we please have a guinea pig so that Q2007 can be conclusively eliminated as a suspect.

Sure. Send me a copy of Q2007 and I'll check it out for ya! ;-)

There are also a couple of areas that I don't completely understand that no one has mentioned: sound schemes and registry locking. Either might explain why only Quicken sounds are affected.

(1) Windows has sound schemes. I run with a single user account with administrator privileges and I have 3 sound schemes under the Sounds tab of the Sounds and Audio Properties form: an unnamed scheme (my active scheme - the only one I ever use), another named No Sounds, and one named Windows Default. When I bring up this form the Sound Scheme field is selected and it's quite easy to inadvertently change the scheme, especially with a wheel mouse. I'm not sure what effect it has on Quicken if you change the sound scheme (especially between installation of two Quicken releases).

My account named "Administrator", which I seldom use, has only the No Sounds and Windows Default sound schemes, the latter of which is active. Neither has any Quicken sound entries. So it's my guess that Quicken installs its sound entries under the currently active sound scheme of the account that does the Quicken installation. Even if you installed Q2007 and a prior release under different sound schemes that shouldn't cause your problem unless there are quirks in Control Panel or Q2007. Both probably should just use the current sound scheme.

This is because Sound Schemes are a per-user setting thus stored under HKEY_USERS not HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

A big assumption above is that Q2007 behaves like prior releases, which it may not! You really need to browse your registry and confirm that you have only the qopen.wav entries shown in Andrew's program. Technical nit: It's a reg file - not a program.

(2) Locking of registry entries. I know nothing about how Windows locks and unlocks its registry entries. It doesn't. Registry entries have ACL (Access Control Lists) much like the security settings for files. And ACL isn't a lock as per se - it's a permissions thing...

But I do know that locks on Windows files are sometimes not released properly even if the process that used the file terminates. This is a totally different thing. Programs can lock files but they cannot lock ACL entries. Registry entries can't be locked but their permissions could be set such that the current user cannot modify them. Also, when a program locks a file and another program attempts to gain access to it and lock it it is put into a wait queue until the first program releases the lock. Bert did not report that he attempted to change the sound and got suspended...

The symptom is that you can't delete the file. Sometimes a simple reboot lets you delete it, sometimes a Safe Mode reboot works, and sometimes you have to boot in command prompt mode.

You can't delete the file because the OS imposes a restriction that you cannot remove a file that somebody else has currently open. Windows does this. Unix, OTOH, doesn't. BTW, you need not go to extremes and reboot or reboot into safe mode to fix this problem. You can use Sysinternals Process Explorer to find the process that has the file opened and either forcefully close that file or kill that process.

Have you tried turning off one of the other Quicken sounds? If you can do this successfully it begins to look like a locked, corrupted or possibly a duplicate entry for your qopen sound.

If you have a registry locking issue Andrew's program will probably bypass the lock. Again, it's not a program - it's a reg file. It doesn't run anything nor is it code. And it will not bypass any lock (especially since there is no lock to be locked). It will equally fail to apply if the current user does not have permissions to modify that registry entry. Hopefully it would report an error.

If that doesn't work Control Panel and/or Andrew's program might work if you boot in Safe Mode.

You're grasping at straws.

As a last resort you can boot into Safe Mode with Command Prompt mode and type "regedit" to edit the registry directly. To exit this mode type "exit", then Ctrl-Alt-Delete and select Shutdown.

I highly doubt any of this is necessary.

Before you use Andrew's program or try to edit the registry you should probably browse it to see what qopen.wav entries you have. Post back if you want to do this and need help with it.

Based on my limited knowledge of Windows and Quicken, access permissions, sound schemes, registry locking, corrupted or duplicate registry entries and anomalies in Q2007 are the only things that can cause your problem. There may be other possibilities that people in one of the Windows NGs might be aware of.

Well you are correct WRT limited knowledge... However the "trick" of renaming the file surely would work as how can even Quicken play a sound from a file it cannot find?

-- Andrew DeFaria C:\DOS C:\DOS\RUN RUN\DOS\RUN

You should!

Just spreading the "love" around... I'm a equal opportunity picker I guess...

I don't. And you're probably right, there problem also is some sort of locking system. But I really don't think that this is his problem.

If you look at the registry this is the sounds portion of the tree for the Control Panel. While possible, I doubt that it's locking only the Quicken portions therein. However even that's doubtful as you cannot run two copies of Quicken therefore why would a lock even be required? Besides locks are generally relinquished when the process ends - normally or abnormally. Beside a simple reboot should clear this.

This can easily be verified by attempting to modify the registry directly and/or shutting down Quicken to make the change either via the Control Panel: Sounds applet or Regedit.

That could be cured by simply not having Quicken running when changing the sounds.

What I'm getting at is that sure, drastic measures such as the ones you suggest above probably will alleviate the problem, as would my drastic measure of renaming the wav file. But one need not resort to using a sledge hammer in all cases.

Damn! ;-)

I got out of the beta testing business a looooonnnng time ago. And I probably would update to 2007 shortly but as I said, I'm in the process of moving next week...

Being as I only have XP Pro I can't comment on the other OSes. You can see registry permissions as I have already said, in regedit right click on a key and select Permissions. Where they are stored? Beats me. Perhaps in the system registry hives that are loaded during boot up.

Thanks for the additional info.

I still suspect registry locking caused by either a previous Q2007 crash or a Q2007 background process. But, since you can't change any Quicken sounds, the lock would have to be at a higher level of the registry tree, maybe at the ...\Schemes\Apps\Quicken level. Perhaps Q2007 does this deliberately to prevent hacking of Quicken data outside of Quicken. If so, I would consider this an excellent security enhancement.

File system corruption is also a likely suspect. You can check it with My Computer -> Local Disc -> Properties -> Tools tab -> Check Now. You definitely want to run the bad sectors check and, unless Andrew has some reason to oppose it, the fix system errors check too. Be forewarned that this takes a long time with today's huge disks.

You may also want to run a registry checker. I don't have any recommendation of which one to use but Andrew can probably help.

Since you seem to be confortable with the registry editor, at this point I'd just try to delete the entries using regedit and see what happens. If this doesn't work you'll probably learn something. Even if it works, the problem will still probably recur for other Quicken sounds and you'll still be able to continue investigation of the root cause.

Jerry

Well,... I decided to install Quicken 2007 on my Wife's PC to see if the problem would show up on hers... It didn't! So, it appears that the problem resides with my PC. With that in mind, I pulled out the Q2007 CD and did a "repair" from the install program... no luck.

I may try doing a total uninstall / reinstall later this evening to see if that resolves it. If that doesn't work, I'm gonna say bye to the qopen.wav file forever! :)

Bert

What sort of "hacking" would that be? This section of the registry only contains sound that Quicken may or may not play in response to Quicken actions. Why would a hacker hack that? To install a sound file that'll tell the Quicken user they are stupid or something?!? I just don't get it. There are much more fruitful places to attempt hacks than sounds...

It's not whether or not I oppose it, it's whether or not the action is likely to fix or otherwise understand the problem. For example, if you have a slow leak in the front tire of a bicycle you could check the chain, but it's not likely to lead you to the solution for the slow leak. Likewise you could replace the whole front tire - that'll fix it for sure. But you need only replace the tube... Or, you can dunk that sucker into water and find the leak and patch it.

This is akin to replacing the whole tire - rim and all. No, we all suspect that something (ACLs, locks) is causing Control Panel: Sounds to fail in it's attempt to set the registry value. It seems that the Sounds applet is quiet about its inability to do this. Perhaps using regedit to set the value would uncover a permissions problem. I don't know if he's tried that yet. But deleting the keys is a very drastic way to attempt to fix the problem.

He could export the keys from the ...\Schemes\Apps\Quicken level, then delete them all, then import what he exported and attempt to reset the sound through the Sounds applet. Hopefully the importation would recreate the keys in such a way that he has permission to modify them.

But it's far simpler to just attempt to set the registry value directly in Regedit. If there is an ACL issue or a lock it should show up right away.

Then again, thinking about it, if it was an ACL or lock problem he should be unable to delete the keys in the first place.

We're all speculating because we don't have a machine handy that has the problem with which to test...

It's really beginning to look like file system corruption now, but I'd try the uninstall/reinstall first because it's really fast and easy. (Or at least it is with Q2005 and Q2006 on my computer - have to be careful what I say with Andrew firing salvos of Katyusha rockets at me :-)

Jerry

And you're probably right

Why didn't you think of this sooner? :-)

Are you both running the same version of XP and the same file system (NTSC vs. FAT32).

It probably doesn't matter but there's a chance that Q2007 may behave differently in different environments. Doctors have a saying When you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras. It looks like Q2007 is now the zebra in your case but I still wouldn't completely rule it out.

Jerry

Did you ever try simply blanking out the value in Regedit?

Jerry Boyle wrote: P.P.S. Just curious. Where does Windows keep its ACLs for the registry and how do I access them? Are they just in XP Pro or do XP Media Center and XP Home also have them? Being as I only have XP Pro I can't comment on the other OSes. You can see registry permissions as I have already said, in regedit right click on a key and select Permissions. Where they are stored? Beats me. Perhaps in the system registry hives that are loaded during boot up.

-- Andrew DeFaria Why do people ask "Has the bus come yet"? If the bus came would I be standing here!

Bert wrote: Well,... I decided to install Quicken 2007 on my Wife's PC to see if the problem would show up on hers... It didn't! So, it appears that the problem resides with my PC. With that in mind, I pulled out the Q2007 CD and did a "repair" from the install program... no luck.

I may try doing a total uninstall / reinstall later this evening to see if that resolves it. If that doesn't work, I'm gonna say bye to the qopen.wav file forever! :)

Did you ever try simply blanking out the value in Regedit?

-- Andrew DeFaria A fool and his money are soon partying.

You mean to say when you go into regedit and right click on something in the tree there is no selection for permissions?

Jerry Boyle wrote: Thanks. XP Media Center does have these. You mean to say when you go into regedit and right click on something in the tree there is no selection for permissions?

-- Andrew DeFaria I just got a physical and asked the doctor, "How do I stand?" He said, "That's what puzzles me!"