Recipe 10.11. Checking Your Windows Sound System
Credit: Anand Pillai
Problem
You need to check whether the
sound subsystem on your Windows PC is properly configured.
Solution
The
winsound module of the Python Standard Library
makes this check really simple:
import winsound
try:
winsound.PlaySound("*", winsound.SND_ALIAS)
except RuntimeError, e:
print 'Sound system has problems,', e
else:
print 'Sound system is OK'
Discussion
The sound system might pass this test and still be unable to produce
sound correctly, due to a variety of possible problemsstarting
from simple ones such as powered loudspeakers being turned off
(there's no sensible way you can check for
that in your program!), all the way to extremely
subtle and complicated ones. When sound is a problem in your
applications, using this recipe at least you know whether you should
be digging into a subtle issue of device driver configuration or
start by checking whether the loudspeakers are on!
See Also
Documentation on the Python Standard Library
winsound module.