I've done some mild googling and searching around at MicroSoft, but I haven't been very successful in finding exactly what I want.
I thought I'd pop a quick question up here- maybe someone has an idea what to do.

The situation-
I've got Windows 2000 on a laptop (Dell C840) in a dock, tied to a monitor and standard 104-key keyboard. Sound is run through the laptop's speakers. In order to change the volume I must click on the 'speaker' icon in the task bar, wait for the slider to pop up, and then adjust.
The request-
I'd really like to be able to instantly adjust the volume from a keyboard shortcut, but I can't figure out how to do that with the 104 (the laptop keyboard *does* have [func]+[vol+ or -], but that's not accessible when the computer is closed- as it is normally in the dock). Perhaps there's already a shortcut defined by MS- I don't know, they haven't documented it in the help files I've searched through.

I know I could get manual control over the volume by a few other means- adding external speakers with a knob, changing to a multi-function keyboard, adding some hack-software, etc.
If the functionality already exists in the components I have, I'd like to do it that way.

This is really a piddling, trivial pursuit and hardly worth the effort I've sunk into this post already, but if you have an idea for me, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks-

I should provide a link thru a vetted web site instead? Or are all pieces of Russian software bad? If you don't trust it, do your own research.

PowerPro is supposed to be able to do it, too, if you prefer "webeddie" to Russia.

I use Sound Control to do this.

Lately, if I'm looking for software for a specific use, I try Softpedia. I found a great program there recently for doing batch printing.

Sure, just install some random binary from the UK. Go for it!

Bitt, you crack me up!

Thanks for the input, everyone.
Have a good weekend-

I just want to chime in and say that this is a pet peeve of mine about laptops.

Even for laptops which have specific volume buttons on their keyboards, you often have to wait for Windows to boot up and load the tricky-dicky driver that links those keys to the sound drivers.

This means if you've got an annoying windows startup sound, and you boot your laptop in a place where you want to be quiet, you can't shut it the fuck up while Windows boots.

Why do they design laptops so poorly? Why aren't the volume buttons pure hardware that work no matter what OS and drivers you've got installed?

When I bought the Toshiba laptop that my GF and I share, I was thrilled to find it had a genuine analog hardwired volume potentiometer. If you need this thing to be quiet RIGHT NOW, there's nothing more effective than a knob. Long live old skool.

Thanks for letting me rant. Carry on.