Windows settings: volume & front app

[Sarah Reichelt]

Dear All,

There have been some threads in the past about these Windows settings 
and I can't find that a good solution has been found for either of 
them:

System volume: is it possible to read &/or set the system volume in 
Windows XP?
Bringing an application to the front: Has anyone worked out how to do 
this in XP?

In Mac OS X, I do both these using AppleScript, but I need to make one 
particular app cross-platform, so I need Windows specific replacements 
for these AppleScripts. I am quite happy to restrict it to XP only, 
although something that worked for older systems would be an advantage.

TIA,
Sarah