The Vista startup sound: You can't turn it off

Filed under: Audio, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial

The Vista startup sound: You can't turn it off

by Jordan Running Aug 25th 2006

Hmm, this is interesting. According to prominent former Microsoftie Robert Scoble, Microsoft's current plan is to make the Windows Vista startup sound a) unchangeable and b) unmutable. The reason for "a" is branding. Having a unified startup sound on all Vista PCs serves Microsoft well, and Microsoft's Steve Ball says users will benefit from "a short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now concious and ready to react." The reason for "b" is that the startup sound is good for troubleshooting--"The startup sound is designed to help you calibrate or fix something that got out of wack when you startup your machine. 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." This all sounds fairly reasonable, but as Scoble points out, this is exactly the sort of thing that turns power-users off most: they paid for the computer, they paid for Vista, they should be able to configure every last thing to their heart's content. This has apparently been Microsoft's plan for several months, but is yet to be set in stone. Ball says they are still listening to user feedback, and Microsoft is considering making it configurable through the registry or similar means for the sake of power-users. One thing's for certain: If Microsoft sticks to its current plan, the certainty of a freeware utility for easily changing or muting Vista's startup sound approaches 100%.

Tags: audio, sound, vista, windows, windowsvista

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Chris said 4:06PM on 8-25-2006

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

CarLBanks said 4:23PM on 8-25-2006

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.

m3nt0r said 5:50PM on 8-25-2006

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.

Robb Topolski said 7:53PM on 8-25-2006

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.

Daedelus said 8:16PM on 8-25-2006

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

Qwfwq said 9:03PM on 8-25-2006

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.

MattsterChief said 12:35AM on 8-26-2006

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!

ModusOperandi said 2:11AM on 8-26-2006

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.

William C Bonner said 11:21AM on 8-26-2006

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..

Pepe Gonzalez said 6:10PM on 8-26-2006

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??

Roger P said 10:38PM on 8-26-2006

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.

GhostDoggy said 10:22AM on 8-27-2006

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.

Nicole Simon said 12:45PM on 8-27-2006

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.

drcolossus of dataleak said 7:00AM on 8-28-2006

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!

Jake said 7:08AM on 8-28-2006

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.

ZipperSeven said 9:03AM on 8-29-2006

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'

Martin said 1:43AM on 8-30-2006

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. ;-)

sbrogden said 11:20AM on 9-01-2006

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.

Paul thunder said 6:32AM on 9-11-2006

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.

Paul thunder said 6:34AM on 9-11-2006

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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