Using Dell's Voice Recorder More than 60 seconds

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@jimco wrote:
I agree with Dave about using a program other than Sound Recorder, but there is a trick to make it record for any length of time.

Sound Recorder will record over a wav file for as long as the length of wav file. So just open a long wav file in Sound Recorder, record over it, and finally 'save as' another name so you don't loose the original file. (At the end of your recording click 'Delete After Current Position' on the Edit menu to get rid of any leftover time.)


Here is another but similar way. I adapted this trick from the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 82215. It is just a common sense workaround.

1. Open Sound Recorder. Click on File menu / Properties / Convert Now.

Select 'CD Quality' in the dropdown list under the word 'Name'. Click ok and ok again.

2. Click Record and then let Sound Recorder run for 60 seconds.

3. After Sound Recorder stops recording, click Save As on the File menu, and name the file Blank.wav.

4. Click Insert File on the Edit menu, and then insert the Blank.wav file that you saved in step 3. When you do this, the maximum recording time is increased by 60 seconds. You can repeat this step once for each additional minute of recording time that you want to add. For example, for a 5-minute recording time, insert the Blank.wav file five times. Save the file when you're finished.

5. To use the extended length, open Sound Recorder and click Open on the File menu. Browse to where you saved the file Blank.wav and open it. You can now record a new file into Blank.wav. At the end of your recording click 'Delete After Current Position' on the Edit menu to get rid of all the leftover seconds of Blank.wav.

6. Be sure to use Save As on the File menu to save the results with a different name, not 'Blank.wav', to ensure that Blank.wav remains unchanged.

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Optional, to have Sound Recorder open with Blank.wav already loaded:

1. Click Start / All Programs / Accessories / Entertainment
2. Right-click Sound Recorder, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Shortcut tab.
4. In the Target box, press the END key, press the SPACEBAR, and then type the location of the Blank.wav file.

For example, if the target is "C:\Windows\sndrec32.exe", and the location of the Blank.wav file is C:\Blank.wav, the new line in the Target box is "C:\Windows\sndrec32.exe C:\Blank.wav"

Jim

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