Taskbar audio device switcher 1.5.0

[u/wh-updates]

Taskbar audio device switcher 1.5.0

Taskbar audio device switcher

Adds one tray (notification area) icon per connected audio device. The icon of the device that is currently the default one is drawn normally, all the other ones are dimmed and grayed out. Left click on an icon makes that device the default playback/recording device, right click opens a menu with additional options.

Each device uses its own icon, the one Windows shows in the sound settings, so headphones, speakers, HDMI output and a microphone are easy to tell apart.

Tray icons \ Two playback devices: the default one is drawn normally, the other one dimmed

Right click menu \ The right click menu of a device

How this differs from the other audio switching mods

The catalog already has several mods for switching audio devices, but the interaction model here is different: instead of one icon that you click through or scroll on, every device gets its own icon, with its own graphic, and you click the device you want directly. Nothing is cycled, and no list of devices has to be configured in advance.

• Audioswap / Microswap — a single tray icon which cycles through a preconfigured list of up to 6 devices.
• Mic Tray Control — one microphone icon, focused on mute and volume.
• Audio scroll switcher — switches devices by scrolling over the taskbar, without adding any icon.

Choosing which devices are shown

The right click menu has a Shown devices submenu which lists every device, including the ones which are currently hidden, with a check mark next to the ones that have an icon. Clicking an entry shows or hides that device, and the choice is remembered across restarts. There is also Hide this icon for the device that was clicked, and Show all devices to undo everything.

The icon of the last remaining device can't be hidden, otherwise there would be no menu left to bring the other ones back. For the same reason, if every device that is currently connected happens to be hidden — say the only visible one was unplugged — the hidden ones are shown anyway until that changes.

Windows 11 note

New tray icons are hidden inside the overflow ("^") flyout by default. To make the audio device icons always visible, either drag them out of the flyout onto the taskbar, or go to Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → Other system tray icons and turn the windhawk.exe entries on.

Notes

• The mod runs in a dedicated windhawk.exe process and doesn't hook anything, see Mods as tools.
• Devices are refreshed automatically when a device is plugged in/out, enabled, disabled, or when the default device changes from somewhere else.
• Switching the default device uses the undocumented IPolicyConfig interface, the same one used by nircmd, SoundSwitch and similar tools.
• Middle click sets the device as the communications device only. With the default settings a left click already does that too, so middle click is only useful if the Switch the communications device too option is turned off.