That is aggravating...if the freeware/Destroy Vista's startup sound isn't soon enough, people are going to start looking at other OS's

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I don't see why it's so important to modify your Startup sound. It's just one 5 second sound that tells my computer is on and that the sound is working. I can't count how many times this has helped me.

One unchangeable sound (I don't change mine anyways) isn't going to make or break Vista for me.

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Just replace the stupid sound with a empty wave.

PS: I wont go for Vista anyways. The hype makes my ears bleed so i already hate that product. This is the point where announcement and PR gone wrong.

Secondly: They can put in it whatever they want.. there will be mods, hacks and tweaks out for it in no time either way... my 2 cents.

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All Intel-based machines should play that BONG!-ding-ding-ding-ding! sound when you boot, too. LOL! This is dumb.

Thank you. I'm installing Ubuntu now.

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Wow, this is getting out of hand. Soon, you won't be able to defecate without The Corporation's permission.

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I'm sure that most people won't care, but I find it frustrating that one cannot skin the Windows UI without resorting to unreliable patches or paid third-party software. All this because Microsoft decided to digitally sign the Visual Styles. Microsoft wasn't able prevent all the vulnerabilities and security holes that plague Windows, but they sure remembered to sign the Visual Styles. And now they're doing the same thing with Vista startup sound ?! This makes no sense at all.
I'm sure there are a lot more important things to deal with in Vista, than to waste their engineers' time with such trivialites. If they really want to prevent users from messing up Windows, bury the configuration options deep inside the control panel and make them administrator-only. However there's no reason to prevent user, who legitimaly want to costumized their OS, from doing so.

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Honestly, who needs a sound to tell them that their PC is ready to work? Shouldn't a desktop with icons, or a mouse cursor be suffecient? What if your speakers are turned off? Tech support will be flooded by people wanting to hear that startup sound and forgetting to turn their speakers on. The article states "Let's say you muted your machine, and you don't hear your startup sound, you know you aren't ready to listen to stuff" Wonder if there will be a dialog box prompting you to make sure your speakers are on in anticipation of the magic 'everything is OK' windows startup sound?
Switch to Linux before Windows comes loaded on ROM in your hard drives!

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10 points to whoever can tell me how this differs in any way from the startup sound that every Mac has had since the 1980s.

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The number of times I've turned on my laptop during a meeting (because it needed to be rebooted!) or conference call, or in some other quiet environment, like a library, is way too hight to count.

In those cases I've usually wished I had a way to mute the sound before it spit out, and been happy when I happened to have left the speaker muted when I shutdown the machine.

It's bad if I have to resort to jamming a device into the headphone jack to get the machine to boot anonymously..

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The FISRT thing I do when I install Windows is turning off all systems sounds (and this is no joke). To me, they are very annoying.
As the use of Linux, and open source in general, grows, it seems that Microsoft increases their "closeness": closed source, DRM, and now this??

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Even worse is the "Navigation" sound in windows... as if I need an artificial "click" sound every time I visit a new web page or folder. And it keeps turning itself back on after installing Windows Updates. Just plain nasty.

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This is as bad as those f-ing local broadcast station identifer logos. How many people REALLY would not know that they are using Microsoft Windows if they sat down at a computer, especially one they own?

Retards.

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I encourage you to go read the article as well as the comments (yes, I voiced my opinionly in there strongly).

By now, it is supposed to be a hard wired song which you cannot replace without modifying system dlls which - as you might remember - are not to be changed as easy as in the past.

As for the MAC: I am sorry, but a mac just has not the reach as windows pc especially laptops have. If you read the commments you will notice a lot of places described where you til now had not that many macs around. Starbucks and alike? Well, there is noise anyhow. ;))

As I mentioned several times on the comment in Robert's thread: Instead of making it mandantory non changeable, how about making it so compelling everybody wants to have it?

You can sell ringtones to people, you should be able to get them hooked on new sounds for their computer. But for the people wanting the choice it still should be there.

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Ridiculous action by Microsoft! But I'm sure there are going to be way to remove or change the sound! It's bad however for non-technical users because they are screwed. Everything that goes against customization goes into the wrong direction for the future!

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I go to a big university (UMass Amherst) with 500 person classes, in which probably 20% of people have laptops. Imagine the professor's frustration at sitting through the startup noise of 100 different computers at the beginning of every class.

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Steve Ball has obviously never had to boot a laptop up in the quiet confines of the public library.

I implore him to try that and then let me know if he really wants to make this 'unmuteable'

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Please Microsoft, save your customers from those embarrasing moments when in a silent place booting up our PCs.

Imagine Vista DOD edition - paratroopers inserted at night behind enemy lines, sneaking in through the bushes. They turn on the battle-hardened, wearable, water- and bulletproof $20k reconnaisance laptops. Their startup sound alerts the enemy terrorist bad guys and the mission fails resulting in a severe Iran-Cartering of the administration. ;-)

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I agree with Pepe Gonzalez - I shut off ALL irriatating Windoze noises as soon as I get my hands on a PC. In cubeville, it's bad enough hearing everyone else's phonce calls. No need to hear all the PCs turning on, announcing new email, error messages, ad nauseum.

Microsoft needs to stick a sock in it.

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I do not know whom thinks of the 'Windows' sounds. They suck!!.
There not imaginative @ all.

They should give you the option to create your own sounds.

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I do not know whom thinks of the 'Windows' sounds. They
suck!!.There not imaginative @ all.They should give you
the option to create your own sounds.

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