Use the Windows Sound Scheme

Windows XP ships with a really nice new sound scheme, but it's not loaded by default. Once you've installed Windows XP, one of the first things you should do is get that new sound scheme loaded.

To do so, open up Control Panel and navigate to Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices. Then, choose the task titled Change the sound scheme. In the dialog that appears, choose Windows Default for the sound scheme. Windows will ask you whether you want to save the previous scheme, choose No, and then click OK to exit the dialog.