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%.