The question device driver has popped up a question from the system tray of life:

I have a laptop with vista. Poor me! But my present problem is this:
Every time I plug in headphones, a balloon comes up telling me that I have done so, and when I take them out, it tells me I have done that too. It is driving me crazy. How can I stop it from doing this?

Now this is an interesting one. It requires some interpretation, but because I have a Realtek soundcard, I?m hoping that the problem may be the same as one I?ve had before. I?m guessing that your problem is related to the Realtek soundcard driver.

Before we get started with an answer, please permit me to digress on one of my favourite topics: semiotics. As a software developer who occasionally develops user interfaces, semiotics is very important to me. One needs to be able to convey meaning through use of common representations, such as buttons, checkboxes, and icons. If, for example, I was to present you with an icon showing a manila folder (in the context of a computer user interface), you?d be most likely to associate that icon with a file folder on the computer?s hard drive. This is the wondrous world of semiotics: I didn?t tell you to think about a file folder, the idea just popped into your mind like magic!

However, just like Spiderman’s sticky superpowers, the great power of semiotics comes with great responsibility. You wouldn?t, for example, associate that manila folder icon I just mentioned with a command to change the settings for the popup that you get when you plug headphones into a port on your computer. Would you?

Unfortunately, this is exactly what Realtek would like us to understand, semiotically. In the image below, the little folder icon I have highlighted has nothing nearby to convey meaning: no words, no indications. There is no other way to understand what that icon does without clicking on it experimentally. Semiotics be damned! This is the brilliant new paradigm for user interfaces: just click the shit out of everything you see and pray that something works!

Now I?m hoping that your problem is solved. If you right-click the little Realtek speaker icon in your system tray, you?ll get the screen I have shown (or one largely similar, depending on the version of the driver you have). Click the amazing folder of mystery, and you should be able to disable the popups. If you have a different piece of driver software, you might need to go hunting for a similar setting. I guarantee it?s the software doing the poppings-up, not Vista.

Happy hunting! Remember kids: if in doubt, just click something. It?s never failed me bef

Tags: Drivers, Popups, Realtek, Semiotics