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Have you ever tried to play sound in both of your USB headset and speakers? You will have a hard time to figure out how to do it. The problem is that most of the time windows audio driver won’t let you do that. You either can set your speakers or USB headset  as your default audio device one at the time but not both simultaneously. Here, I will tell you the solution how to make your USB (wireless) headset and speakers to produce sound at the same time. This solution uses a software called Virtual Audio Cable which is not free but you can still download the trial software. With a little luck you can find full version on rapidshare.

Here’s a snapshot of my devices setup with the use of Virtual Audio Cable software to produce sound on both of my USB wireless headset and normal speakers at the same time. OS is Windows 7 x64 RC as you can see watermark at the bottom right corner.

Avira Antivir Personal is a neat anti virus software which you can download for free. Well, it’s not entirely free compared to AVG Free Anti-Virus because through daily update (by default)  it would pop-up a big nag screen asking you to purchase a full professional paid version of the software which is Avira AntiVir Premium. Therefore, some may call it a nagware. Like most anti-virus software, it scans disks for viruses and also runs as a background process, checking each opened and closed file. It can detect and possibly remove rootkits. Avira updated all their products to version 9.0 as of March 2009. Here’s a workaround to disable its nag screen.

Windows Vista Ultimate x86:

1. Open Local Security Policy through Start > type secpol.msc in Search box and hit Enter
2. Click on Software Restriction Policies > Action > create New Software Restriction Policies.
3. On left pane right-click on  Software Restriction Policies > Additional Rules > New Path Rule….
4. Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir Desktop\ and select avnotify.exe  and then click on OK.
5. Set Security level to Disallowed.
6. Click Apply and then click OK.
7. Voila, pop-up nag screen is history. Enjoy your free Avira Antivir

Note: For 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate, avnotify.exe is actually in C:\Program Files (x86)\Avira\AntiVir Desktop

Windows Vista Home Premium:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Avira\AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic\avnotify.exe.
2. Right-click avnotify.exe and go to Properties > Security.
3. Under the group or username SYSTEM, click edit.
4. Put a checkmark under the DENY column for “read and execute”.