I'm having the strangest problem with my sound

Hello,
I just built my new computer, I upgrade about every 3-4 years and have been building my own for 15 years. This time I am having a strange issue with my sound, when I control it with the speaker icon on my task bar.

I like controlling all my sounds no matter what there is being played, windows media player, flash player, browser.

What happens is when I click on the task bar volume icon to adjust the sound, I find that this icon,


Isn't in control, I can have it half way up like this one in the pic but sound is very low.

I open the mixer and I see that the system sounds and Mozilla Firefox has a icon and I have to move it up to control the sound levels. You can see what I am talking about here,




Then when I am playing a song and windows media player is playing it once again that creates another icon in the mixer like this.



My new motherboard came with some high end sound built into the mobo and there is a window I can open to change all kinds of things but I just want it plain and simple. I want to control the level of sound that is coming out of my speakers using the good ole Volume icon on my task bar, this one.


Can someone please help me out and explain what is going on and how I can control all my sound levels using the icon above.

Thanks
Ron

It has always been like this in Win7.

It is like this so you can adjust individual apps volume. And I find it quiet handy(i.e., reducing game volume and increasing teamspeak to hear friends better). Don't know about others opinions.

If you single left click the icon on notification area, then it will open the one on your last screenshot (main control).
If you right click and open volume mixer, you will get the mixer.

Or do you mean it is not happening for you?

GokAy said:

It has always been like this in Win7.

It is like this so you can adjust individual apps volume. And I find it quiet handy(i.e., reducing game volume and increasing teamspeak to hear friends better). Don't know about others opinions.

If you single left click the icon on notification area, then it will open the one on your last screenshot (main control).
If you right click and open volume mixer, you will get the mixer.

Or do you mean it is not happening for you?

Oh yes I know all that stuff I have always been able to control my sound levels with just the speaker icon on my task bar. I find it a pain in the but that every time a different application opens a video that has sound or I play a song I have to go into the mixer and adjust the levels for the application that is playing the sound. I don't like that at all! I want to set it up so that happens.

Thanks for the reply

Tell us if you find a solution to what you are seeking :)