volume settings don't persist after client reboot

[Peter Scheie]

On my Dell Latitude thin clients, the sound volume is at maximum for the first 
person to login after the client is booted, which is startling & annoying (and 
probably frightening for small children).  Lowering the volume will persist 
after the user logs out and logs in again (and perhaps even if a different user 
logs in?  Can't remember now).  But once the client is rebooted, it goes back to 
maximum volume no matter who logs in.  I would have thought the volume setting 
would be stored in some Gnome file local to the user, no?  Further, it would be 
nice if root could set a default volume level for all the clients.  Any ideas?

Peter