Windows settings: volume & front app

[Sarah Reichelt]

>> is it possible to read &/or set the system volume in Windows XP?
>
> Are you talking about the master volume?
Yes, I have an alarm that really has to attract attention, so on the 
Mac, I make sure the mute is off, set the volume to 100% and play my 
audioclip. It really works well. After the alarm clip has finished, I 
then reset the Mac's volume settings back to whatever they were before.

>   Otherwise, the playLoudness
> setting as mentioned already can be used (looks like it actually sets 
> the
> wave volume level on Windows).
I've read previous posts about setting the playloudness but it seems 
that if the user already has the volume down low, or muted, this will 
have no effect.

Thanks to everyone for their ideas and suggestions, I'm waiting to see 
Curry's demo stack but I may be stuck with just using the playloudness 
unless there is an external around somewhere.

Cheers,
Sarah