Steps to reproduce:

Run NVDA with the --minimal command line switch.

Actual behavior:

NVDA's launcher startup sound plays,
NVDA starts a temporary copy
No launcher interface appears

Expected behavior:

The description of the switch is: "No sounds, no interface, no start message, etc."

While there doesn't seem much point in running:

nvda.exe --minimal

with no other switches and NOT having NVDA run, we've had several users trying to use this with --install-silent in order to silently install NVDA and confused as to why it is still playing the startup sound.

Issue #6289 was a similar issue, but ended up resolving a fix for the installer crashing when no soundcard was present (eg some situations when installing via SCCM in a virtual machine).

While the argument was put forward in that issue that this is a screenreader, if we're going to have a switch which proclaims "No sounds" then it should deliver on that promise.

The simple fix of course would be to reword the description, but we do get asked regularly and I think it is worthwhile having a way of installing NVDA without it making any sound.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA version:

NVDA 2020.4 installer

Windows version:

Windows 10 (64-bit) Version: 2009, Build: 19042

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

I didn't when writing this up, but the behaviour isn't new