In this tutorial, we present a method for individually assigning audio sources to different audio outputs.
1. Right click the sound icon in the taskbar and select Playback Devices.
2. Make the destination audio output the default device.
3. Launch the audio sources you wish to assign to the output you just made default.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each audio output you want to use.
Open up the volume controls once you’re finished tinkering, and you should end up with something like this:
Headphone-bound applications
Speaker-bound applications
The trick: Each time you open an application, its sound will be routed to whatever output you have currently selected as the default. This pairing between source and output is “sticky.” Changing the default output does not migrate any of the sources to the new default output.
Microsoft should make this easier. A 2D grid of audio inputs/outputs would be optimal, but perhaps the easiest thing to implement at this stage is a “move to” contextual menu item, which moves the selected audio source to a specified audio output.
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this is by far the coolest thing I’ve seen in Vista yet.
The newer tutorial doesn’t work on my system. This way works though. Too bad there isn’t an easier way in Vista to specify which program you want to go to whichever output you want.
The assignments are not sticky — if you change the default device, re-run the application, it will be re-assigned. Some applications allow you to assign a particular audio device rather than the default audio device, but most do not. Too bad there isn’t a way to make assignments sticky.
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