Hi.

In the default Windows XP audio mixer/control that is accessed by simply clicking the audio icon in the taskbar, I used to have control over my audio line-in. In Vista however, there is only audio control for the applications that are currently open.

Is there a way to make the audio line-in bar appear in Vista Audio Mixer? I do know that I can set it in my Realtek options in Control Panel, but accessing Control Panel each time I need to turn my line-in up/down is too bad.

Here are some pictures. The first one displays how the Line-in does NOT appear in the Vista mixer, and the second one shows how it DOES appear in XP.

1: http://tinyurl.com/2vgw22
2: http://tinyurl.com/2mxa3g

It has something to do with people recording to a line-in, which wasn't really that big of an issue when XP was in development, but Microsoft has to watch their own butts and doesn't want to be responsible for illegally distributed recordings. Hats off to Microsoft for this smart decision.