Question from Mary: I have a Lenovo laptop with Windows 10 that I use for both work and pleasure.
During my downtime I enjoy playing Solitaire with the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” app while also listening to music videos on YouTube.
The problem is every time an ad comes on in the Solitaire app the audio from the ad blasts through the music from YouTube.
I searched the settings in the app up and down and I can’t find a way to mute the ads. Do you know of a way to do it?
Rick’s answer: I enjoy playing Solitaire with that app as well Mary, and I agree that the ads are quite annoying.
As luck would have it, there are actually two ways to go about muting the ads in the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” app.
First, you could simply pony up the cash for the premium version of the app which eliminates the ads completely.
If you were to decide to go that route it would cost you $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year – your choice.
The advantage of this approach is it completely eliminates the ads from the app – no muting required.
The obvious disadvantage is it isn’t free. It’ll cost you a bit of cash up-front and you’ll have to keep paying on a monthly or yearly basis in order to keep using the ad-free premium version of the app. And while low, those recurring payments will add up over time.
If you decide to go this route simply wait for an ad to appear and then click the “Want to disable ads?” link at the bottom of the app window and follow the instructions from there.
Your second option is to simply mute the app via Windows 10’s Volume Mixer.
The advantage to muting the ad this way is obvious – it’s completely free!
But there are a couple of disadvantages to this approach as well:
1 – Although the ads will be muted, their videos will still appear periodically and interrupt your game.
2 – Muting the app via the Volume Mixer isn’t fool-proof. All it will take is an errant click in the wrong place to cause the app to be taken off mute.
Even worse, I’ve also noticed that some ads have the ability to reverse the mute action on their own as they begin playing.
What I recommend is that you give the free method a try first and see how it work out for you. To do that simply follow the steps below:
1 – Right-click on the Speaker icon in the lower-right corner of the screen and then click Open Volume Mixer.
2 – Find the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” entry and click the Speaker icon at the very bottom to mute the app.
Bottom line: Your choice here basically boils down to this…
You can eliminate the ads altogether by paying to upgrade to the premium version of the app but the costs will add up over time.
Or…
You can mute the ads for free using Windows 10’s Volume Mixer but you’ll still have to deal with the app becoming “unmuted” at seemingly random times.
Update from Mary: Thanks for the help, Rick. I’ve decided to go with the free option and it seems to be working out ok.
Like you said, the ads go off mute every now and then but I can live with that.
I will never pay to use the app. I really enjoy playing Spider Solitaire with it but not enough to justify paying for it.
Thanks again for your help!
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