How to turn off system sounds without muting everything?

There may be times when you want your computer to just shut up - you don't want to hear sounds when you start up, receive email, get an instant message, etc. You could just mute your speakers, but then you couldn't listen to music or hear the audio when you play a video file. The answer is to temporarily change the Windows sound scheme. Here's how:

1. Right click the desktop
2. Select Personalize
3. Click Sounds at the bottom of the window
4. On the Sounds tab, click the down arrow under "Sound Scheme" and choose "No Sounds"
5. Click OK If you only want to turn off sound for specific events (such as email), you can do that, too. Under "Program Events," scroll down to the event you want to silence (New Mail Notification), highlight it, then under "Sounds" at the bottom, click the down arrow and select "(None)."