Turns out that BEEP is a service; but a service that's hidden from almost all user interfaces.

The easiest way to stop it (temporarily) is to open a command prompt (Click Start, Run and then type CMD and click OK or hit enter) and then type the following:

net stop beep

Easy enough. However, after a reboot, you'll need to do it again... which is a drag, so let's use a lesser known command, SC, to handle this for us.

From its help text:

DESCRIPTION:
SC is a command line program used for communicating with the
NT Service Controller and services.

In the command window, type

sc config beep start= disabled

There needs to be a space after the equals sign.

Once you do that, your computer should respond with:

[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS

You can also do this using the GUI, but I don't know why you would want to... it's a chore.

For an XP system (Win2K and Vista are similarly done). Instructions gacked from Windows IT Magazine:

1. Right-click My Computer and select Manage.
2. Expand System Tools and select Device Manager.
3. From the View menu, select Show hidden devices.
4. Expand Non-Plug and Play Drivers.
5. Right-click Beep, and select Properties.
6. Select the Drivers tab.
7. Click Stop. You can also change the start-up type to Disabled so the beep service never starts.

Enjoyyour new, quieter, life.

If you need to turn it back on, use this:

net start beep

On the off-chance you want to turn this back on forever, use the command:

sc config beep start= boot

Or using the GUI instructions, change step 7 to:

7. Click START

To have it restart forever:

7. Change the start-up type to Boot so the beep service starts at boot time.