[VCM] VCM utility moving to legacy in 0.67 timeframe (updated from community feedback)

[yuyoyuppe]

Update from crutkas:

Based on community feedback, we'll be shifting the decision from removing the feature to moving it into a legacy mode (maintenance only). This will still be in the 0.67 timeframe. Our team will only directly address critical bugs, security and accessibility issues.
We'll accept community PRs for enhancements but to date for VCM, has been small in comparison to others which was one of the supporting factors in our decision.

We love the community and feedback. Thank you for helping guide our decision.

[htcfreek]

What about Win10 users? They don't have the shortcut. I don't think removing the utility will make users happy.

[yuyoyuppe]

This issue is the place to gather feedback like this.

[Aaron-Junker]

Wait, but isn't this feature just for apps that support this. It doesn't work for all apps.

Also there is no feature for camera muting.

[isaacdontjelindellblp]

Chiming in after seeing that a deprecation warning is already in place with the most recent version. I have to be on Windows 10 for a while yet, so this will remove the feature with no replacement for me?

Also, +1 on the other comments (Win 11 shortcut doesn't work for all apps, and no replacement for camera mute).

EDIT:
@yuyoyuppe is this actually gathering feedback, or is this a firm decision? The fact that all the related issues have been closed and linked to this issue makes me think this is a firm decision and not a feedback-gathering issue.

[Jay-o-Way]

Yeah I'm confused too. I think the choice is quite definitive, so what kind of feedback do you want???
Discussions is the place for either an Announcement or a Poll.

[gchacks]

This issue is the place to gather feedback like this.

I use Windows 11 and use VCM a lot when using Zoom. I love the new feature where the display stays on when on mute AND off-MUTE. Please do not deprecate as it is a valuable feature. For Win11, you should look at how you could tap into the mute button displayed in the taskbar to mute/unmute. Currently this only works with MS-Teams but I believe it would VCM could be tweaked to enhance this capablity in Win 11

[6Tom]

EDIT: @yuyoyuppe is this actually gathering feedback, or is this a firm decision? The fact that all the related issues have been closed and linked to this issue makes me thing this is a firm decision and not a feedback-gathering issue.

Same feeling. I strongly hope to retain this feature. I am also a win11 user.

[gchacks]

This issue is the place to gather feedback like this.

I use Windows 11 and use VCM a lot when using Zoom. I love the new feature where the display stays on when on mute AND off-MUTE. Please do not deprecate as it is a valuable feature. For Win11, you should look at how you could tap into the mute button displayed in the taskbar to mute/unmute. Currently this only works with MS-Teams but I believe it would VCM could be tweaked to enhance this capablity in Win 11

Also I just tested the global shortcut (win+alt+k) in windows 11 and it doe not work with zoom. You get a little pop-up that says "no supported apps in use for mic mute" for 2 secs and it disappears ...more reason NOT to deprecate VCM :)

[redlad]

What about Win10 users? They don't have the shortcut. I don't think removing the utility will make users happy.

Yes. totally agree. We would like to move to Win 11 but corporate world does not move that fast

[Ayandaftary]

Against the deprecation. The mic mute shortcut in Windows 11 is an opt-in from app developers, VCM was global and forced.

[bzzrak]

If nothing else, it could be released as a standalone app so that people don't have to keep old PT versions around if they need it.

[Armin2208]

You also don't remove Fancy Zones just because Windows 11 has now better window management. Conference Tool is a must have feature for PowerToys. The only app which supports Win + Alt + K is Microsoft Teams.

[AnonymousWP]

Lol, just now I wanted to start using VCM on my Windows 10 machine (I'm still on W10 for some more time), just because of the new 'hide when muted' feature. I really would like to use this feature on W10. What's the pain of keeping this feature for just W10 users? It probably requires a check though (code-related, to check whether the user is running W10 or W11, if that piece of code doesn't already exist).

[lezmaka]

Removing VCM completely because Windows 11 has a similar but worse feature doesn't make any sense, unless devs are planning on dropping support for Windows 10 outright. Might as well remove FancyZones, Image Resizer, Shortcut Guide and probably others since there's similar but worse ways to do some of that in Windows already.

[Jay-o-Way]

@crutkas @yuyoyuppe If VCM will be removed after v0.67 then it's too soon to actually close all VCM issues already. We can lock issues in the mean time

[Aronjlove]

Many of my work meetings have moved to new Microsoft Teams. I finally have a reason to use this feature, which works perfectly! I understand entirely focusing effort elsewhere but thank you for not removing it. New Microsoft Teams and the tray icon are in sync when using the mute mic and push-to-speak hotkeys.

[hoegge]

Will the feature finally be kept? Would be nice

[oscarstankard]

I second those comments stating that just because a similar feature exists in the OS doesn't mean there's not scope to maintain a more flexible/complete version in PowerToys, or that anything that requires admin permission must be removed? The thing is meant for power users, not just user level tools that have nothing similar available in the OS etc? I don't trust the various software makers to respect my button presses to mute mic/blank webcam, they (for example) provide access to the people paying the service provider to remotely unmute it etc? I've got a hardware control for my webcam so I can mute/blank that reliably, but when I'm using a bluetooth headset/4 pole headphones, having a global mute/blank function is very handy and a great assurance that you can safely visit the toilet etc without someone remotely unmuting your mic remotely etc 🤣.

[mainsm]

I think I will have to stop updating PowerToys if this feature is actually removed. A nice compromise would be to release the feature as a standalone application that can be installed beside PowerToys.

[spiralofhope]

@mainsm

I think I will have to stop updating PowerToys if this feature is actually removed.

The feature isn't being removed.

The only way it might be removed in the future is if it becomes incompatible with the latest updates of the various supported Windows', and nobody submits bug fixes.

There wouldn't be any concept of using an old copy to keep the feature, because the feature wouldn't work.

[timtucker]

As FYI for anyone looking for an alternative (admittedly a paid one), MuteDeck just got a lot closer to being a direct replacement for VCM.

They just released a new version this week that added the ability to set keyboard shortcuts for global audio / video mute:
https://mutedeck.com/blog/2024-10-14-mutedeck-v28-hotkeys-settings-loupedeck/

Still a few missing pieces (like hotkeys for "Push to Talk" or a combined "Mute Mic + Camera") that I posted requests for on their feedback tracker.

I'd started out using it in conjunction with VCM last year and for the past few months have been using it alone with VCM turned off.

Note that like VCM, it does still have the limitation that it can't listen to hotkeys that are pressed from within a Hyper-V VM. For that I have an AutoHotkey script that runs with admin privileges to catch commands. It was actually a little simpler to set that up with MuteDeck, since it has an API interface I can call directly with curl when I get a keypress event rather than needing jump through hoops to reissue keypress events on the host system.

[mainsm]

Note that like VCM, it does still have the limitation that it can't listen to hotkeys that are pressed from within a Hyper-V VM. For that I have an AutoHotkey script that runs with admin privileges to catch commands. It was actually a little simpler to set that up with MuteDeck, since it has an API interface I can call directly with curl when I get a keypress event rather than needing jump through hoops to reissue keypress events on the host system.

This is going a bit off topic from VCM, but would you be willing to share your AHK script that listens for your keypress and sends it back outside of the VM?

[timtucker]

@mainsm

This is going a bit off topic from VCM, but would you be willing to share your AHK script that listens for your keypress and sends it back outside of the VM?

I'm using a slightly modified version of this RDPHotkeyHelper script that passes media keys to the host:
https://github.com/neon-dev/RDPHotkeyHelper

That had a lot of stuff figured out already (like detecting when a VM is launched and rebinding keys so they still get captured), but all of the code for passing through keystrokes is based on single key events.

I ran into issues trying to come up with code to get key combinations to pass through and shelved the idea of using it for muting until I came across the MuteDeck API.

Here's the code that I'm using for calling MuteDeck (added right before the function definition for PassToLocalMachine):

; Control + Alt + Shift + A
^+!a::ToggleMute()
ToggleMute() {
	Run 'curl --silent -X POST http://localhost:3491/v1/mute', , "Hide"
}

If you wanted to adjust that to the same binding that VCM uses, you could use:

; Windows + Shift + A
#+A::ToggleMute()

As-is, it works OK with general RDP sessions to just drop it in a startup folder.

Hyper-V needs elevated privileges for intercepting key bindings, so I launch it via a Task Scheduler task with the following options:
General

• Run only when the user is logged on
• Run with highest privileges

Triggers

• At log on

Settings

• If task is already running, "Run a new instance in parallel" (the script is set up to run as a singleton so it doesn't matter if it gets relaunched)

[cinnamon-msft]

Closing in favor of #36339

[cblake777]

NO. Please do not close this in favor of REMOVING VIDEO CONFERENCE MUTE.

[sirmeili]

Please do not remove this. I use the Video mute portion of VCM every day! I get not wanting to maintain it, but why are you now removing it when this thread shows that there is a loyal user base for this functionality.

And before you say I can install it separately, I can't. Work has approved for me to install powerToys, but I can't just build the VCM on it's own and run it.

[kiddailey]

I've already said it as others have. Disappointing. I rely on this so much. It's the most reliable, consistent, elegant way I have found to mute across a multitude of apps.

[kiddailey]

And before you say I can install it separately, I can't. Work has approved for me to install powerToys, but I can't just build the VCM on it's own and run it.

@sirmeili Well said. It's really annoying when people assume you can just install any old software at will.

[chjohans]

@mainsm

I think I will have to stop updating PowerToys if this feature is actually removed.

The feature isn't being removed.

The only way it might be removed in the future is if it becomes incompatible with the latest updates of the various supported Windows', and nobody submits bug fixes.

There wouldn't be any concept of using an old copy to keep the feature, because the feature wouldn't work.

You obviously have too much faith in Microsoft.....

[S0ndz]

...And there she goes! "Community feedback" they said.

[K4leds]

This is just sad, I use it everyday and it makes a huge difference in my workflow.

[ATrogolo]

What about Win10 users? They don't have the shortcut. I don't think removing the utility will make users happy.

On Win11 there's a system shortcut to achieve this, but not from Win10.
Please, restore this feature (as deprecated and not supported anymore)
Please 🙏

[sirmeili]

Can someone tell me the Win11 alternative to video mute? I know there is a half baked equivalent to the mic mute that does not work everywhere, but as far as I know there is NO replacement for video mute. It's disingenuous to say there is an alternative when at best you're talking about 50% of what VCM does.

[timtucker]

Can someone tell me the Win11 alternative to video mute? I know there is a half baked equivalent to the mic mute that does not work everywhere, but as far as I know there is NO replacement for video mute. It's disingenuous to say there is an alternative when at best you're talking about 50% of what VCM does.

Pretty sure there isn't one.

Even where it works, there's no good solution for things like "push to talk" - the keyboard shortcut portion of power toys only allows for shortcuts that execute on key down.

[ketz]

Ah crap, I really used this feature LOADS. I'm in multiple calls a day, and it was my goto shortcut. I didn't want to have to upgrade to Win11 just for a system-wide mute button

[timtucker]

Ah crap, I really used this feature LOADS. I'm in multiple calls a day, and it was my goto shortcut. I didn't want to have to upgrade to Win11 just for a system-wide mute button

FYI: MuteDeck is the closest I've found to replacing VCM. It's not a 1-to-1 alignment but it's pretty close and has a few extra features that are nice (like support for webhooks).

[whawn1]

Won't be updating any further -- 87.1 forevah!

[jcoeng]

Really disappointed. I use this feature in every video conference. I keep seeing claims of "low usage" as the justification for removing the feature. I'd love to know how they are capturing the data to make this claim. The VCM usage must be measured relative when you are in a situation that uses your mic, hence in a meeting. When looking at other tools in the suite relative to the time they are intended to be used (windows up time, user login time, etc), VCM is probably my most used tool in the suite. I too will not be updating.

[kiddailey]

Really disappointed. I use this feature in every video conference. I keep seeing claims of "low usage" as the justification for removing the feature. I'd love to know how they are capturing the data to make this claim. The VCM usage must be measured relative when you are in a situation that uses your mic, hence in a meeting. When looking at other tools in the suite relative to the time they are intended to be used (windows up time, user login time, etc), VCM is probably my most used tool in the suite. I too will not be updating.

Agreed, and I'd like to know what constitutes "low usage" for a microphone muting keyboard shortcut -- which by nature is not something you're constantly fiddling with (it's probably just a count of individuals using it). I use it regularly (at least a few times a day on average) but not constantly and when I need it, I really need it.