Determine if sound plays in Windows

Question

So, I thought about this problem for a while, and I can’t figure out how to do it right. I want to determine if Windows outputs sound at a specific time using a Powershell script. I can determine if the sound driver has an error, but I can’t for the rest of my life find out if the system plays sound.

I looked at the .NET class for System.Media , and the three classes inside all were related to playing sound or controlling system sounds.

I do not ask you to write code for me, I just need to know where to start checking if Windows is currently playing.

I have a sound monitor that constantly monitors the sound on the Node.js platform, and when it loses sound, it sends me text. Well, I also want him to go through all the systems to which he is connected, and see where the error lies. This is why I want to see if the Windows computer is playing sound.

Answer 1

Here's how to use the code provided by Simon Murier.

Run the code below:

 Add-Type -TypeDefinition @' using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; namespace Foo { public class Bar { public static bool IsWindowsPlayingSound() { IMMDeviceEnumerator enumerator = (IMMDeviceEnumerator)(new MMDeviceEnumerator()); IMMDevice speakers = enumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow.eRender, ERole.eMultimedia); IAudioMeterInformation meter = (IAudioMeterInformation)speakers.Activate(typeof(IAudioMeterInformation).GUID, 0, IntPtr.Zero); float value = meter.GetPeakValue(); // this is a bit tricky. 0 is the official "no sound" value // but for example, if you open a video and plays/stops with it (w/o killing the app/window/stream), // the value will not be zero, but something really small (around 1E-09) // so, depending on your context, it is up to you to decide // if you want to test for 0 or for a small value return value > 1E-08; } [ComImport, Guid("BCDE0395-E52F-467C-8E3D-C4579291692E")] private class MMDeviceEnumerator { } private enum EDataFlow { eRender, eCapture, eAll, } private enum ERole { eConsole, eMultimedia, eCommunications, } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("A95664D2-9614-4F35-A746-DE8DB63617E6")] private interface IMMDeviceEnumerator { void NotNeeded(); IMMDevice GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow dataFlow, ERole role); // the rest is not defined/needed } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("D666063F-1587-4E43-81F1-B948E807363F")] private interface IMMDevice { [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IUnknown)] object Activate([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStruct)] Guid iid, int dwClsCtx, IntPtr pActivationParams); // the rest is not defined/needed } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("C02216F6-8C67-4B5B-9D00-D008E73E0064")] private interface IAudioMeterInformation { float GetPeakValue(); // the rest is not defined/needed } } } '@ 

I replaced all var types, as this apparently fixes a problem with code that doesn't compile on PowerShell version 2.

After loading, you can check the status as follows:

 [Foo.Bar]::IsWindowsPlayingSound() True or False 

I tested this work with Windows 10 1703 on PowerShell 5.1

---

But there are reservations:

 this is a bit tricky. 0 is the official "no sound" value but for example, if you open a video and plays/stops with it (w/o killing the app/window/stream), the value will not be zero, but something really small (around 1E-09) so, depending on your context, it is up to you to decide if you want to test for 0 or for a small value 

So, if you change return value > 1E-08 to return value > 0 , you will get the truth when the video is paused.

Answer 2

Here is a sample C # code that determines if Windows creates any audio stream. It uses the Windows Core Audio API (in particular, the IAudioMeterInformation interface ) and is supported in Vista and above.

 public static bool IsWindowsPlayingSound() { var enumerator = (IMMDeviceEnumerator)(new MMDeviceEnumerator()); var speakers = enumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow.eRender, ERole.eMultimedia); var meter = (IAudioMeterInformation)speakers.Activate(typeof(IAudioMeterInformation).GUID, 0, IntPtr.Zero); var value = meter.GetPeakValue(); // this is a bit tricky. 0 is the official "no sound" value // but for example, if you open a video and plays/stops with it (w/o killing the app/window/stream), // the value will not be zero, but something really small (around 1E-09) // so, depending on your context, it is up to you to decide // if you want to test for 0 or for a small value return value > 1E-08; } [ComImport, Guid("BCDE0395-E52F-467C-8E3D-C4579291692E")] private class MMDeviceEnumerator { } private enum EDataFlow { eRender, eCapture, eAll, } private enum ERole { eConsole, eMultimedia, eCommunications, } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("A95664D2-9614-4F35-A746-DE8DB63617E6")] private interface IMMDeviceEnumerator { void NotNeeded(); IMMDevice GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow dataFlow, ERole role); // the rest is not defined/needed } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("D666063F-1587-4E43-81F1-B948E807363F")] private interface IMMDevice { [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IUnknown)] object Activate([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStruct)] Guid iid, int dwClsCtx, IntPtr pActivationParams); // the rest is not defined/needed } [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown), Guid("C02216F6-8C67-4B5B-9D00-D008E73E0064")] private interface IAudioMeterInformation { float GetPeakValue(); // the rest is not defined/needed } 

As stated in my comment, I also created the C ++ open source project, a simple console application with zero friction dependencies, available here: https://github.com/smourier/IsWindowsPlayingSound . I added one x86 binary release that should support 32 and 64-bit OS: https://github.com/smourier/IsWindowsPlayingSound/releases

You can use it in PowerShell, like any external .exe program. It will return the error level that you can get using standard methods, for example: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2006/09/15/errorlevel-equivalent/

Here is the equivalent C ++ code:

  #include "stdafx.h" // includes <Endpointvolume.h> and <Mmdeviceapi.h> #define WIDEN2(x) L ## x #define WIDEN(x) WIDEN2(x) #define __WFILE__ WIDEN(__FILE__) #define HRCHECK(__expr) {hr=(__expr);if(FAILED(hr)){wprintf(L"FAILURE 0x%08X (%i)\n\tline: %u file: '%s'\n\texpr: '" WIDEN(#__expr) L"'\n",hr, hr, __LINE__,__WFILE__);goto cleanup;}} #define RELEASE(__p) {if(__p!=nullptr){__p->Release();__p=nullptr;}} int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { BOOL playing = FALSE; BOOL loopmode = FALSE; float epsilon = 1E-07; float value = 0; HRESULT hr = S_OK; IMMDeviceEnumerator* pEnumerator = NULL; IMMDevice *pDevice = NULL; IAudioMeterInformation *pMeter = NULL; // Parse optional args // "loop" -> sets a loop mode for easy testing // <float value> -> changes epsilon for (int i = 1; i < argc; i++) { if (!strcmp(argv[i], "loop")) { loopmode = TRUE; continue; } float eps = atof(argv[i]); if (eps != 0.0) { epsilon = eps; continue; } } CoInitialize(NULL); HRCHECK(CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(MMDeviceEnumerator), NULL, CLSCTX_ALL, __uuidof(IMMDeviceEnumerator), (void**)&pEnumerator)); HRCHECK(pEnumerator->GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow::eRender, ERole::eMultimedia, &pDevice)); HRCHECK(pDevice->Activate(__uuidof(IAudioMeterInformation), CLSCTX_ALL, NULL, (void**)&pMeter)); do { HRCHECK(pMeter->GetPeakValue(&value)); playing = value > epsilon; if (!loopmode) break; printf("%.10f playing:%i\n", value, playing); Sleep(100); } while (TRUE); cleanup: RELEASE(pMeter); RELEASE(pDevice); RELEASE(pEnumerator); CoUninitialize(); if (FAILED(hr)) { printf("An error occurred: 0x%08X\n", hr); return hr; } if (playing) { printf("Windows is playing a sound.\n"); } else { printf("Windows is not playing a sound.\n"); } return playing; } 

Answer 3

You can use the AudioDeviceCmdlets module written by Chris Hunt

Write-DefaultAudioDeviceValue -StreamValue looks exactly what you are looking for. Otherwise, you can take a look at its source on how it pulls these values ​​using CoreAudioApi