Suggestion

I need a program that lets me amplify my microphone input, something that can preprocess the audio stream before any other program gets it.  Any good ones?

www.linux.com

haha
I need a WINDOWS XP program that lets me do the above

1.) http://vmware.com
2.) http://linux.org

There is a built-in way to boost the volume of the microphone in Windows XP. Click the Advanced button under Microphone, then click Microphone Boost.

You're better off buying a pre-amp for your mic that amplifies the signal before it gets into the audio card/chip. Much, much better quality. The built in amplification function of Windows, as well as any other program that amplifies the samples, will amplify the noise you get at the point where the AD-conversion happens. With an external pre-amp it will be a lot better.

>>5
A driver issue or maybe sucky chipset is preventing me from doing that (C-Media mobo PCI chipset).  Everything I look at online is telling me there should be such an option but no such option is found.  A Windows reinstall may fix it (*may*, I never looked for this option before) but I wish to put it off for awhile.  (Hey, I heard you, >>4 and >>2)

>>6
Mic pre-amp, that's an option as I might use it for recording sometime.  However, the current purpose is merely chatting so pristine quality is not necessary.