OK I did everything Windy suggested. The sounds worked, but as soon as I did a full shutdown the computer, then start the computer back up again, sounds were lost once again.

ok at this point i would say something is causing a conflict and not informing you. my suggestion at this point would be to rerun windows, unless windy or anyone else has something else to try.

Ok, this is just grasping for straws here.
Can you check the "Volume Mixer" and make sure that the Winstep entry is indeed 'registered' on the Bluetooth headphones and not some other device, and also that it's neither muted nor is its volume very low?
Windows 7 (and Vista) have individual application volume settings, but are also capable of redirecting individual application output to different playback devices (that last feature is somewhat hidden but still exists). So, I was wondering whether Winstep has been 'dumped' or has 'dumped' itself on a device that you can either not hear or has no real output apparatus connected -- like, on my computer, the digital outputs of the sound card (optical and coaxial) and the front panel jack, which can be selected but have nothing hooked on them.
If you open the Volume Mixer and can't see the Winstep entry (Nexus icon, Workshelf text, partially hidden), you can select a different output device by using the drop-down menu which appears when you click on the active device name, in the mixer, always. Selecting a different output should show the 'applications' field (next to the device field) devoid of any applications. Should you see any there, that means that something gets redirected to a different device when it shouldn't.
Finally... one last thing. From what I saw (I downloaded its manual), your iCom device also has a 3.5mm jack for wired input. If you disconnect your Bluetooth and use a normal jack-to-jack cable and connect your PC's normal audio-out (green 3.5mm socket on the backside panel) or normal headphones out (if it's a laptop), can you hear all the sounds or is Winstep still inaudible? If it's the latter, that means that the iCom (or Bluetooth or that iCom/Bluetooth/Winstep combination) is not to blame and there's something else the matter. For instance, it could be some PCM codec (WAV encoding is PCM) missing or corrupted or redirecting its output.

Oh, and my apologies for writing a novel with each post.

I welcome your long posts. They are very helpful!

Ok I found something interesting.

I went to my Volume Mixer and looked it over. It showed a speakers entry which I could use a drop down menu from that to switch between Bluetooth AV Audio or Realtek High Definition Audio).

Under the bluetooth one it showed several applications next to it each with their own volume categories showing programs like Firefox and System Sounds. Winstep was not present though.

I tried the jack itself, but couldn't get any sound. I thought it might be the standby issue (something that's more prominent with the jack as it seems to be very sensitive (the jack on my iCom itself) as it will switch into standby mode even during pauses between songs. This is actually why I prefer my bluetooth as it doesn't auto-switch into standby mode like that.

So I played some music in the background to prevent the standby mode from kicking in, but still heard nothing. I looked and saw my media player (VLC media player) appeared in the bluetooth speaker section with its green volume effect going up and down indicating sound was playing.

The media player/system sounds/etc didn't appear under the Realtek menu, and I get no sound from the jack (which I assume is using the Realtek menu).


Is there a way to forcibly assign applications to appear here? THis may be the clue we've been looking for!

The easy way out of this, without too much fuss, is to disable the Realtek sound 'card' completely, provided that you don't use it at all. The easy way is to select the "Realtek High Definition Audio" from the drop-down menu, then click on the 'speaker' icon and, on the pop-up dialogue that comes up, use the drop-down menu at the bottom of it, where it says "Use this device (enable)", and simply choose "Don't use this device (disable)". That way, everything will (hopefully) be routed to the Bluetooth output device.
Strictly speaking -- and assuming noone else is using that computer, so that they'd need the on-board audio -- the best way would be to enter the computer's BIOS and disable the audio adapter completely, so that it doesn't occupy any space in the memory map nor any IRQ or DMA channels. In other words, it won't waste any 'resources' and it won't consume any power.
Another way would be to enter the Windows device manager and disable it from there.
However, just disabling it from the audio settings should be enough to try it out.
The weird thing is why the applications are behaving like that. Maybe Windows has 'decided' that the Realtek device is preferable? Maybe the Bluetooth device isn't always enabled? I really don't know; it's one of those 'mysteries' with Windows, I guess...

Hm...trouble is up until very recently (when I responded to your last post earlier up the thread) I had had the Realtek disabled (in this case via disabling it in the Device Manager Screen) and was still having this bug.

It's also weird how it work fine once I do an install, but stop as soon as I shutdown and then restart my comp. I have to guess something is interacting (Windows/Winstep Extreme/ or something) and shifting Winstep to use a different sound device instead of the bluetooth one.

Oh, and yeah I'm the only one who uses this comp.

Perhaps disabling it in the BIOS would work???

How would I do that?

out of curiosity what version of windows are you running? the reason i'm asking is i've been having an odd problem of late. from time to time (maybe once a day) when i mouse to do something with winstep i loose all my sound and when i click the creative console i get told no audio device. i had been doing a restart or logoff to fix it, but this last time after seeing what skagon wrote i went into sounds in the control panel, disable then re-enabled the default sound device. i am leaning to a windows update being the culprit cause i have done every search you can think of and been through everything on the computer with a fine tooth comb, and no luck. i'm running win 7 ultimate x64 sp1 with all the current updates.

I have:

Windows 7 Home Premium

64-bit operating system

Service Package 1 installed and I believe all updates (it shows all important updates installed and I also installed an optional update related by windows media player related to CD DVD decryption fixing). Still no effect or change.

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser...

Anyhow, to answer your question about the BIOS: when the computer boots up, the first 'screen' that you can see -- the one usually showing either processor and memory and hard drives information or a big logo of the motherboard manufacturer -- will tell you which button to push, to get you inside the BIOS. Usually it's [DEL] but on some rare occasions it can be [F1] or [ESC] or rarely something else. If you do that, you'll end up (again, probably) in a non-graphic menu environment.
I'm saying all these "rarelys" and "maybes" because the BIOS, even though there's only one producer of BIOS software (Award a.k.a. American Megatrends), the motherboard makers have great liberty customising the details, which ultimately means that options can end up anywhere and under any name the producer fancies. Also, lately there has been a BIOS replacement called EFI, which is (again, usually) fully graphic with a mouse pointer and checkboxes.
Anyhow, inside the BIOS, there's a category (or submenu or call it what you will) labeled "Integrated Peripherals" or "Onboard devices" or something like that. If that doesn't exist, look for an "Advanced" entry or something like "Chip Configuration" or "I/O Configuration". Inside, you'll find entries from all on-board devices, like sound card, network adapter, SATA, RAID, parallel and serial ports, USB controller, anything that the motherboard might have come equipped with.
Obviously, what you need to do is to go to the audio entry which might be labeled as simply "Audio" but could also read "AC97" or "HD audio" or "Azalia codec" or "Onboard audio" and set it to "Disabled". Usually, modern BIOSes work with the arrow keys and [Enter] but some older versions work with the [PgUp] and [PgDn] keys to change options.
After that you press [Esc] to go back to the first BIOS 'screen' and make sure you select "Save and exit" (as opposed to "Exit discarding changes").
That's it. The on-board audio circuitry will be permanently disabled and from then on invisible to Windows (or any other operating system for that matter).

[There... another elegy...]

Ok! We are making some progress finally at least!

I went into the BIOS as you described after a bit of searching I found an Audio Controller and disabled it. Saved and exited and went back to normal Windows.

As I had expected it displayed "no audio device installed". I went and then activated Blue Soliel (the program that bluetooth tech uses to interface between my iCom and the computer). Selected the iCom device turned on AV Audio and ran my VLC media player and could hear music just fine.

At this point the audio mixer finally shifted from crossed out to normal. I opened up the volume mixer and it showed AV Audio and happily one of the applications now showing was Workshelf Nexus!

However....the dock STILL didn't play sounds. :/

But at least this gives up more clues for hunting down the issue.

Like before I could play the female voice test button and get the voice. It showed the green bar moving under Nexus in the Volume Mixer during the female voice playing, hence the voice was playing out correctly even on the Volume Mixer.

However, when I tried normal sounds. I still got no sounds to play and no green bar movement under Nexus app in Volume Mixer. I tried muting and then un-muting it, fiddling with the volume (it was already set to max) and tried to get the sounds both from the normal dock and from the test button on the menu in the Workshelf preferences. No green bar movement and no sound.

Hopefully this new info might help you guys figure out what's up.

Though at least Nexus is now clearly showing up and I'm able to receive audio normally even after turning off the normal audio setup in the BIOS.

ok at this point try installing winstep over the top of itself, then try the sounds.

Hm, I think this isn't about reinstalling and uninstalling, but something different. Of course, only Jorge can really know what's going on.
My theory is that Winstep is 'registering' itself on whatever audio device is present when it starts up, and that setting is kept throughout its 'life'; then it's just using that 'assignment' for all effects. But, it *must* be re-registering (or requesting the default audio device from Windows again) when it's about to announce the time, on a different 'assignment' or 'thread' than the main Winstep application. So, my theory goes like this: when it's starting up (I assume along with Windows), you either haven't yet activated the Bluetooth or maybe the Bluetooth audio device gets loaded afterwards or it just takes more time to communicate with the iCom and register. So, the main Winstep application thinks there's either no audio device or that the default audio device is the Realtek one (that was before you disabled it) and keeps 'talking' to that.
All in all, you can just try to exit Winstep and re-run it, *after* you've activated the iCom and it has registered itself as the main (or only) audio device on your computer. See what happens then.

Well, that's my theory anyway...

Well it seems your theory has some truth to it. Firstly, yes iCom does start up much later than Winstep Extreme. The iCom device has to be activated (the thing I wear) so it can connect up with the Soliel program. While the Soliel program does start up alongside other startup programs it doesn't start "active" I have to turn on the iCom device to connect to that program which is of course after both Windows and Winstep has already started. The device can't connect to the Soliel program until the Soliel is fully running which is as I said after Winstep. :/

However, I tried your last suggestion. Closing Winstep and then starting Winstep up again. I'm now getting the sounds again properly!!!

It seems you were correct here, Wistep isn't detecting the audio device properly for its sound effects because it has started before the audio device is on.

I suppose I don't really mind having to set Winstep to no load up on startup and instead start it up manually after I connect my iCom, but it's kind of annoying to do so.

Is there any chance this issue to be fixed in a future update of Winstep? Or that there is something else to do to circumvent the problem?

Well, the proper thing would be to get Jorge to readjust his code and make it work properly.
Actually, there are a few options to have Winstep start with Windows but with a delay. Question is, what should that delay be, considering you have to manually activate the Bluetooth thingy? You can schedule a delayed start-up with the system scheduler for Windows but there are also a couple of programmes out there that do the same thing. Just google "delayed startup" and you'll see.
The point is, if you're certain that you do activate your iCom thingy immediately after starting Windows, then go ahead and do it. However, what if you turn the computer on and go make a cup of tea or the phone rings or something? It'll still mean that Winstep will start using the wrong audio settings, won't it?

In any case, I'm glad we got to figure this out as much as we did. At least now Jorge will know what to look for.
Cheers!

Cheers!

Thanks to everyone! You've been a big help!

I hope Jorge will add a fix for this issue in an upcoming update, as I know I and other hearing impaired people would greatly appreciate it!