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Vista Startup Sound to be Mandatory?
Toreo asesino writes "There has been lots of debate in the past few days over Microsoft's plan to make the startup sound in Windows Vista something that can't be specifically silenced by changing the sound settings in the control panel. Users would be able to avoid hearing it by manually turning down the speaker volume, but then they would have to turn that volume back up to hear anything else."
wait until everyone learns that the new start up sound is the microsoft eula, read out loud, in nonrepeating segments
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is a typical case of product-focused vs. user-focused thinking.
Has it occured to anyone that a user might just wake up early morning and wants to turn on his/her computer without waking up sleeping family members?
For this very reason one of the first setup steps I always do on a new machine is to turn off the startup sign.
Bing!
Seems the least of our worries, we'll just await the first hack that makes sure the sample doesnt play.
Delete or Rename the file? or has that functionality not made it into the filesystem yet?
The Mac startup sound has always been mandatory. Don't like it? Plug in your headphones for a second... The stuff that makes front page these days *sigh*
Do they seriously think annoying the users who care enough about their systems to turn off the Windows startup sound in the first place is really a good idea?
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
They will have to come up with some kind of way to turn it off. The majority of broadcast automation applications still run on Windows. When I worked at KDKD, we had all the on-air PCs set to "No Sounds"... It's always funny to hear a Windows sound on the radio.
Here's the bottom line: If you have to ask the question, "Should the user be able to change this?" then the answer is: YES.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I try and try not to be ovelry criticize Microsoft, such as wasting shareholder dollars on Zune, but mandatory startup sounds for Vista? Talk about branding for the sheer point of making people associate your brand with irritation. Manually turning down the volume each time, say in a library or lab, is the work around? Huh?
At least the article references Ze...
I think the fact that Microsoft considers this a feature worthy of pushing shows how trivial "enhancements" to Windows have become at this point. They're not bothering to fix what really needs fixing.
I really don't think this is gonna happen.. even if it does, it's a matter of hours before someone else hacks the startup processes to modify it. Besides, if the sound makes the sound of sucking $$$ out of my wallet, it might be perfect for Vista.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
Imagine an office where I can't expose people to the happy sound of elephants trumpeting every time I boot my PC?
Needle Nardle Noo
It will be something along the lines of this?
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting be
It's my freakin computer, you better let me silence it if I wish. Maybe I don't want to irritate people in a cafe, lobby, waiting room, whatever with noises coming from my laptop. Maybe I just don't want an "I'm ready to be used" noise. Maybe I don't care if you think it's convenient. Maybe I dont care if you think it's cool or pretty sounding. Maybe I just want the stupid thing to be quiet.
And Xbox or Playstation are not good excuses, those are for a different market. There's also a number of people out there using mod chips to regain control of those things if they don't like some decisions from the manufacturer. Just because my Xbox makes a startup noise doesn't mean that I want it to. And just because some Engineer at Microsoft or Sony decided their toy for kids should make a startup noise does not mean I want to hear it on my laptop, tower, or anything at the office in the morning.
I still hold out hope...
Yes Steve a registry setting please...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\ShutTheFuckUp
make sure that dword is set to 1
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
This shows how disconnected from the real world Microsofties have become.
Imagine being in a large university class with 100 or 200 students and half of them boot their laptops at the beginning of the class. The sound will be played 50-100 times, how much more annoying can it get!
The startup sound will be the voice of Steve Ballmer saying "Please bend over, this won't take long".
The Mac startup sound is also a nice short chord.
Microsoft's startup sounds have a length half as long as a standard symphony performance. The way Microsoft works, anything "unique" to them is going to be over the top and annoying to boot.
Wonderful. This will be a real plus in seminars, as people can't turn on their damn laptops without making a stupid noise. Or on an airplane. Or any other situation (with the kid sleeping in the other side of the room, for example).
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Unbelievably dumb. A massive triumph of marketing people over reality. How can this can be presented as a 'I see both sides of this fascinating argument' in the article? The argument that lots of other systems do this too is irrelevant; currently, you don't have to do this in Windows - why start making this mistake now?
Is the startup sound on Macs customizable? I don't think it is. You turn on your computer and...
"BAHHHH."
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
The startup sound has obviously become the ca-ching of a cash register.
It'd be pure microsoft...
It's just a marketing exercise.
Quite smart, really - you generate a lot of hype about something absolutely trivial and get the user community, blogs, forums etc all hyped up. Then you implement the trivially pointless feature you've managed to convince people to really want, and proudly announce that you're responsive to your customers needs.
Then you can get quietly back to locking them out from their own data with proprietary formats and DRM.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
...sources close to those in charge of Vista's user interface development say the startup sound will be that of '...[M]illions of computer users crying out, and suddenly silenced...'
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Has it occured to anyone that a user might just wake up early morning and wants to turn on his/her computer without waking up sleeping family members?
Just today I walked into the "Maximum Quiet Study Area" for our univerisity's library, and popped open my laptop and turned it on. My gkrellm instance sounded my "alert" sound (which is actually very rare, the load was too high from the boot apparently), and I rushed to hit the mute button.
The startup sound on Vista would be before any multimedia keys are registered if it's at all like XP is, and that wouldn't have worked. Laptop speakers don't have volume control!
If Vista does require this, and I hear someone turn on their laptop with "welcome to Windows Vista!", I'm going to throw their laptop out a window, no pun intended.
It just HAS to be a joke. They can't really be considering annoying their users in this way, right?
I suppose the system will REQUIRE the sound file, and it must be a signed/DRMed WMA10 file too, right? And ONLY Microsoft-signed sounds (e.g., Vista Plus! pack or whatever comes out alongside the OS next year) will be "allowed" to replace the default sound?
Meh. I won't be affected. When I have to run Windows (for legacy hardware not supported by Linux) it's Win98SE or Win2K, and I can customize SuSE and kubuntu linux to my heart's content. Fuck Windows Vista and the DRM fest and locked-down GUI that will come with it. Monad, you say? I already have that; it's called bash.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Reason #1. It's from Microsoft
Reason #2. It's been delayed 5 times and still won't die
Reason #3: Fundamentally no better than XP
Reason #4: Still no shell
Reason #5: Or compiler
Reason #6: Takes more space then it really ought to
Reason #7: New added value bonus DRM compliance goodies!
...
Reason #76: It takes more memory than a weather simulation of Earth just to show the desktop
Reason #77: "Ultimate Edition"
Reason #78: Annoying Startup Sounds
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'll take a stab here and say that it will contain a subliminal message...
After a while they will begin leasing out the SubLim ad slot to Microsoft Prefered Partners via the windows update function every tuesday.
[/tinfoil hat]
Place a curse on Microsoft
OMG..they have a branded starup sound! Can we have a startup sound too! Please!
"A spiritual side of the branding experience. A short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now concious and ready to react."
Spiritual side? WTF does that mean? Do we get Kool-aid if we format the drive?
"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."
Maybe the power LED being off, the dial at 0 or the red 'no' symbol on the speaker icon might give it away after you hear absoulutely nothing coming from the speakers?
Of course there are the foot pedal mouse and coffee holder ROM drive crowd to think about. Maybe they can get an offical Vista helemt with a send in postcard.
"The Xbox has a hard-wired startup sound. "
Which makes sense. Your siting down to game and the sound system has a mojor role in that experience. It also happens as soon as the machine starts. You know exactly when it's going to happen. It's basically a "hey..it's this loud right now..get your volume set..we're getting ready to game". Not blast you out if you forget where your settings were the previous time and you walked away during boot up.
People get paid to "think" this crap up. It's amazing.
The problem with this is that it means that mobile users will be less likely to restart their computers - or power them up, for that matter - in meetings, etc., where you don't want to draw attention to yourself with an annoying startup sound. Now, I'm not sure if there's still an option for turning ALL windows alert sounds off, including the start up sound, which might mitigate this a bit. But on some computers, especially many laptops with softkeys for volume, you've got to ALREADY BE IN WINDOWS to turn the sound off. So say you were using your computer with sound on, say, gaming, turn it off, and boot up 2 hours later in a meeting - you'd have NO CHANCE of disabling a loud and annoying sound that draws the kind of attention to yourself that you REALLY don't want drawn to you.
It all just begs the question "why?" was the code that they have to turn off the start up sound now SO BADLY WRITTEN that they decided not to migrate it? C'mon guys. And also:
They've been working on this project as the "#1" priority in their group (past updates, etc.) for over half a decade now. I'd REALLY like to think that they'd have most of this kind of stuff decided already. Did somebody buy everyone in the Windows dev team an Xbox and then an XBox 360? Is that why its taken them 60 months to put together about as much of a feature upgrade as the OS X dev team usually puts together every 18 months? What have they been waiting for? Are they tailor-making Vista technologies to run Duke Nukem Forever? Is that the reason for the delay? Because I really can't find much of a better rationale anywhere else... other than maybe they've cut so many features of Vista in the past few years that no one left working on the project has any idea what code they're actually supposed to be writing.
Oy.
Tim
You mean everyone doesn't delete all the M$ noise files at the first boot? Find a winbox that I haven't deleted the media files from, I looked and there aren't any here.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Here are three major OS on the market:
OSX: built around experience, this OS is made to be simple to use, easy to market, look shiny and tie well with its accompanied Apple hardware. Apple's credo is that they are amazing as hell, and their users will be wowed at whatever they throw at them. As such, OSX provides features such as mandatory startup sounds, mandatory "hardware", mandatory skin and other mandatory "tuned to be kewl" stuff. They have some success, but their market share is still decreasing (currently at meager 2%) because they don't realize that unlike iPod, a PC is (yet) not just another consumer device.
Unix / BSD / Linux: it's made for professionals, for tinkerers and and people who like control over their machines. Those OS have their share of attempts at eye candy, but the main point of the OS is the ability to go down to the bone and tune it just like you like it, without excess fat and trash around. It doesn't have much adoption with casual folks as a desktop OS because the distros are rarely consistent, require low level knowledge of the underlying system to get the maximum out of it and hardware software doesn't target it a lot.
Windows: is sitting in the perfect spot. It's easy to use, has a lot of software written for it, works on commodity hardware, and is practical for business, entertainment and more. It's not perfect, and in fact was quite flaky when the consumer branch was based around the 9x core (for legacy reasons). These guys however get a lot of criticism that they are not enough like Apple and not enough like Unix. Windows has no cult status among its users, while *nix and Apple does.
I have no idea whether it's a complex or lack of confidence in their own strategy, but sometime around XP, Microsoft decided they wanna be more like OSX and Unix, which are dwarfed by Windows on the market of desktop OS. They are just doing it, for no apparent reason, they are not losing market to their competitors on the desktop market, but feel the urge to copy them and be "more like them".
XP and Vista are trying hard to build a branded experience much like OSX, while other projects like Channel 9, the new power shell, and tons of other admin-related utilities and technologies are targeted to the Unix crowd and appearing more opened.
Some of this has positive effects on the users of Windows, but some of it, is just plain stupid (like the glassy look of aero.. it's not easier to use at all, it's one of those gadgets you show off in the PC shops, like OSX's scaling icons on the dock bar). Their desire to preserve their "perfect" branding by locking and hardcoding everything in place is just a symptom of this much deeper problem.
I wish Microsoft would just accept its position in the market, keep the right balance between flexible and preconfigured, and swallow the criticisms, which will come no matter what, versus try and copy whatever fads come along.
Not just the startup sound, but all of the sounds, like I want to hear if I click my mouse, my mouse can make that sound on its own, and I don't need a sound every time one of those alert buttons pop up, they are on top anyway so I'll see them, right?
But then again, with OSX it isn't possible to disable the startup sound either (or so I've heard) so if people would make a fuss about this, then why not continue at apple?
Who?
What?
The hacked pirated version is looking more appealing the more I read about vista
that Sony has a built in sound?" he said. "Did you know that Toshiba has one?"
Ill bet nobody knew the Mac has one. Just in case that hasn't been beaten to death already.
What?
From TFA, it's suggested you turn on your pc, have something to eat, and then your box will let you know when it's ready to log you in ...
Will Vista REALLY take that long to boot up that you're going to need a sound to remind you ?
You've heard wrong. Just set the volume to 0. Shutdown. Press the power buttun and the machine starts silently (well, at least the laptops do -- I don't know about desktops).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Since my first Windows box (WfW 3.11, 1993), I've used an awful lot of different startup sounds, from the sound of breaking glass to the Mac Quadra-era System 7 "CHUNG!", to funny outtakes from voiceover sessions I've engineered.
My current system at work, which I built around an MSI Athlon 64+ motherboard, is housed in a case that looks like a Soviet-era toaster: dull silver-grey plastic and louvers on the front that look like they belong on the hood of a tractor. I festooned the case with hammer-and-sickle symbols and the letters "CCCP" in red type bordered in yellow. That computer's name is "katyusha".
Its startup sound is the Red Army Chorus singing the Soviet National Anthem. Just one verse, though. It annoys my employer to no end, but he'll be the first one up against the wall when the Revolution happens. Fucking capitalist pig dog.
What really annoys me is the faux "click" sound of an unaltered XP install, the one that's bound to Windows Explorer "Start Navigation" events. It's never in sync with the mouse click. Second most annoying is the crumpled paper sound when the "Recycle Bin" is emptied (are those bits really recycled? Hmmm?). I turn those off immediately after an install.
Somewhat less annoying (but all too common) are users that bind the sound of a toilet flushing to the "Empty Recycle Bin" event. Invariably, they're the sort of person for whom a fart joke is the pinnacle of humor. But they bitch like hell when you bind the sound of a lusty wet ripping flatus to each mouse click. "My computer's been hacked!" they complain. "I was humiliated in front of a client!"
How d'you like me now, bitch?
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Alex I'll take what's the most trivial story ever published on slashdot for $1000.
Need Mercedes parts ?
But OS X users don't restart their computers, so the point is moot.
I rarely shut down my MacBook Pro or the Powerbook I used before that - I just put it to sleep by closing the lid and open the lid the next time I want to use it.
I only have to restart because of the occasional system software update that requires a restart. Otherwise I'm golden.
A turd is still a turd, even if you "only" have to step in it once a week (, month, year...).
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Fact of the matter is: the massive target base of Windows users are stupid. They need and like this sort of thing. Like it or not. If you are the latter, then don't install it, use linux like i'm sure you already do. On the other hand if you still wish to install it, i'm sure there will be a fix/patch/whatever which will satisfy your needs.
Suspend and sleep are also "features" in Windows, in case you didn't know. I believe Linux has decent support for those "features" as well.
At any rate, it's pretty dumb to implement this now.
You don't even have to mute it before you shut down. You can shut the laptop down with the sound on. When you press the power on button, start holding down the Audio Off/Mute button on the keyboard. Hold it until you see the Apple. Bingo. No startup chime, and sound is still enabled (or disabled, whatever it was before) once you get to the desktop.
That sound lets you know your hardware has done the Mac equivilent of a POST. (Power On Self Test) PC Hardware beeps to let you know it has done it's POST too. Although you can set a start up sound in MacOS to let you know the OS has booted, one is definitely not forced upon you.
Obviously what he meant was that most modern laptops do not have potentiometers, but software volume controls. But then again, why am I feeding an AC troll?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Then the RIAA gets you for using this piece without a license!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Well, not to rain on your parade, BUT:
:)
I worked for a non-profit when Windows 2003 was released to manufacturing. They were donated two new dell servers and two boxed copies of Win2k3 Standard edition for the purpose of running two databases that previously were hosted on one box that was seriously overloaded. Decent servers on the high end at the time - hot swap power, hot swap drives, dual proc, etc. These boxes are Internet facing (not for database access, that requires an IPSEC connection at the firewall level) and hosted at a big name co-lo facility. The database is Oracle 9i.
I remember well the day that I hardened them and finished the deployment. It was May 1st, 2003, a Thursday I believe. Win2k3 had just become available the previous week. Oracle had released a big set of patches for 9i not long before.
I still check in on those boxes. One has 994 days of uptime, and the other has, as of last week, 1190 days. The longer running of the two - DAEDALUS - runs close to 75% load from 6am-6pm, 5 days a week.
The only other box I have running that beats that is a Netware 4.x box. But that barely counts as a usuable OS
... you'll always be able to disable the sound by changing your master boot record.
http://outcampaign.org/
Reason #79: Just to make #78 clear, if I want my computer to make a funny sound every time I reboot, I'll lick my finger and rub it across the screen, and if the squeaky sound doesn't amuse me enough, I'll shove it up Steve Ballmer's ass.
thats not even the point. On my brand new Dell latitude D620, the XP start up sound plays before my mute button is registered. Trust me i've tried, when ive been in places that require silence and i find myself having to muffle my speakers physically.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
It's striking how different this proposal sounds to how the Mac startup chime works.
Scoble dances around giving a full description, and it sounds like things are still being fleshed out, but the clear implication is that the plan here is to play some kind of music at either the login screen or (presumably if auto-login is turned on) when the current user gets to a working desktop. Implicitly, this is going to take a while, so they encouraging you to go for a walk and come back when the chime plays.
With a Mac, on the other hand, you get a polyphonic startup chime right when the machine is turned on. This fills a couple of functions, including welcoming the user to start working on the computer soon, and proving that the machine passed POST tests. Next the hardware is initialized, and system services start loading. Up until 10.3/Panther, the user would be presented with a series of frequently-vaguely-understood system services one by one as they loaded, but with 10.4/Tiger, the whole startup process was re-thought and replaced with launchd , which in turn made it possible to boot the system boot much faster (don't load unneeded services, delay non-critical ones until later, run as many of the others in parallel, etc) so that now you just have a sham progress bar as the system boots as fast as possible up to the login screen or desktop.
What is the better use of resources: figuring out how to make the system boot so fast that you don't have time to get that cup of coffee, or hiring 70s rockers to compose a melody to play once you've finished brewing another pot? Hmm.....
And before you say that Microsoft doesn't have as much control over the hardware, that's baloney. Be didn't have control over the hardware, and they had a hell of a lot less resources than Microsoft, and yet they still figured out how to get BeOS to cold boot to a functional desktop in 15 seconds or so. No OS shipping today that I'm aware of -- Windows, OSX, Linux, etc -- manages to do that as well as BeOS did a decade ago, and the hardware has only gotten better in that time. Why not? It's obviously doable. Figuring out how to get computers to do that again would be wonderful.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
1st reason, if you mute the sound, the startup chime is also muted.
2nd reason, sleep actually works very well on Mac models, and most Mac laptop users don't shut their machines down often. This of course is not true of 100% of the population, but it is true of a very large portion. As one example the Macbook has a bug where if you shut it down and close the lid, it crashes and doesn't shut down. While this is a known issue, very few Macbook users report it or complain about it.
I have only shut down my Macbook once, and that was to upgrade the RAM, since then it has been sleep only when it was not in use.
Shawn's Tech Articles
I have a laptop with a very loud startup beep that can't be disabled (one of my roomates said when he first heard it go off he thought it was the fire alarm). I run FreeBSD on the laptop, and FreeBSD has an even longer startup beep that I only recently learned how to disable (you have to edit some assembly code and rebuild the first-stage bootloader). I always carried around one of those 1/8"-to-1/4" headphone converters and stuck it in the headphone jack when booting my computer to disable the startup beeps.
People saw it sticking out the back of the computer and asked me what it was. I came up with lots of funny answers.
I pulled this bait and switch on my SimCity denizens quite some time ago.
They bitch about pollution, you raise taxes until they can't stand it anymore. They make taxes priority 1, bitch and moan. You lower taxes and they forget they had *anything* to bitch about at the beginning.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Toss a chair.
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
But Apple can do no wrong here on /., so the point is moot.
There. I fixed it for you.
Look, this is either an idiotic thing that should be an option controllable by the user or it's not, and whichever it is, it is regardless of how many times somebody might reboot their computer.
It never ceases to amaze me how many excuses people here can come up with for why their double standards aren't double standards. I expect no less than 5-6 more in reply to this post.
The suspend and sleep features are fairly crappy for Windows; at least not on par with Mac.
I used to use the sleep feature on my Win laptop (used to travel around and install and configure routers and such) and it's fine for a few awakenings but you can't keep a bunch of apps loaded without the system being buggy. I eventually would reboot in the morning and load the essential before venturing out and do it daily. Daily reboots that is.
My Mac has gone months without reboots and might add that it is operational within 2 seconds of opening the lid. I've only manually rebooted when it was time for security related patches that affected me. One thing that I use Windows for is the USB to serial for a console port which is why I use both platforms.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Almost all Toshiba machines (lkaptops anyway) have a genuine mechanical wheel attached directly to a pair of pots on the output. Once moe sanity triumphs over digital madness!
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
If Vista does require this, and I hear someone turn on their laptop with "welcome to Windows Vista!", I'm going to throw their laptop out a window, no pun intended.
Most Airlines frown upon things being thrown out the window in mid flight....
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
About the only laptop manufacturer left that still includes an actual potentiometer volume control is Toshiba, AFAIK, for all their models. All the others are using software for volumes, dedicated volume key or not.
I have no idea why no other brands do this, but having an actual volume control is extremely useful. I hardly ever touch windows' horrible software volume control and just leave it at maximum.
There is this StartupSound Preferences Panel that allows for more control over the startup sound...
I do it because having some corny sound play every time I reboot is just too much to bear.
What really bugs me is that Scoble says he can "see both sides" of the issue. What kind of workplace culture does Microsoft have, where they'd even consider imposing such an obnoxious feature?
This isn't going to happen, of course. The "you have got to be kidding" emails must be already pouring in. But the fact that this is an issue says nasty things about the Redmond mentality.
No I think you'll find on most laptops that that Fn+F11/F12 or whatever it might be actually does generate a key event; they work exactly the same as multimedia keys on desktop keyboards, the only reason they do it with Fn key is to save keyboard area. This is certainly the case on my laptop (which is by no means cheap or offbrand), and on nearly all laptops that I've seen which lack the wee little potentiometre setups.
My laptop is permanently muted anyway; who the hell listens to sounds coming out of your laptop speakers? Sounds like arse. And even when the headphones are plugged in, you still get major interference from the integrated sound chip.
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers
Fixed that for you.
From the article: 1. A spiritual side of the branding experience. A short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now concious and ready to react. You can turn on your Vista machine, go eat some cereal, while your machine is cold booting and then this gentle sound will come out telling you that you can log in. You won't need to wait for your machine to startup, he says. Does it really take that long for Vista to boot up?
I own an IBM ThinkPad T42 (One of the last ThinkPad's before Lenovo bought them).
The volume control is three separate buttons, and they work immediately even while it's booting (shutdown unmuted, push mute on the IBM logo screen during POST, and it boots muted). Same with the Fn keys which adjust the LCD contrast and etc.
Also, the speakers on it actually sound pretty good (no bass, but very clear). They're in front of the keyboard, but they're actually under the very front edge of the case pointed at an angle at the table; the effect is, when it's on a table, you hear it even better. It still sounds nice and clear on other surfaces too, including your lap. They're good enough for playing games, as well as most music IMHO.
Just replace the startup sound with that sound no old people can hear. The librarian will think everybody except you is crazy, even though you're the one running Vista.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
That's something I've never understood though. Why don't more people disable that? What function does a start up sound serve?
When will people understand that sounds can be annoying?
Sounds on web-pages are annoying, sounds when you start your computer or just use it normally are annoying, even in games sounds can be annoying, most of the time you just don't want to hear a sound, either because you don't want to make any noises or because you're listening to music.
When is the last time that you were listening to music and some awefull piece of music emanating from your speakers 3 times louder than the music you were listening to all of this because someone on myspace tought it was cool to put music on their main page?
My point is, make this a commandement : Thou shalt not make any sounds unless necessary. I mean really necessary, what's the point of having your computer make some pseudo-zen chime when it gets started up?
Oh well, it gives you a couple of coolness points if your start up sound sounds like "SEGAAA!!!"
You just got troll'd!
Might be easier for King Crimson and Robert Fripp fans I suppose, as Fripp is responsible for "Windows sounds" according to http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=1518 53
and
http://www.krimson-news.com/2006/08/25/the-fripp-s ound-in-windows-vista/
Yes, and remember that the best way to accelerate your Vista-based system is 9.8 m/s^2!
It looks like you're trying to boot Windows!
www.linuxpenguin.net
In case any one is wondering about the nature of the sounds in question, there are samples of Robert Fripp's work online. One of my favourites is a recording from a building that still exists, but saw so much tragedy: the World Financial Center.
Much as I like RF's work, I still expect people will be able to turn the startup sound off, without having to hack anything. The way computers are used in quiet environments such as libraries and classrooms, that would be very inconsiderate of M$. No sound is that good.
(this is not a
I'm pretty sure that my Thinkpad T42 volume keys work before the OS loads... It's probably not completely hardware, but at least it works without having any drivers installed in Windows.
Possible Vista startup sound files:
1. Ballmer screaming, "I-LOVE-THIS-COMPANY!"
2. Gates laughing hysterically that you even purchased Vista.
3. Gates clip from the 80's praising the Mac.
4. Gates laughing hysterically because he's so rich he now doesn't care WHAT you like in Windows.
5. "Cha-CHING!"
I'm sure there are lots of others that would be appropriate...
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Fun prank: change your air-traveler friend's Windows starup sound
Laptop:"This laptop will expode in 10, 9, 8 ..."
Federal Air Marshall:"Sir! Turn that off NOW or I WILL SHOOT!"
Hapless Prankee:"Uh, I can't! It's Windows!"
Hee hee!
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Just you wait until they lock the desktop background to a picture of Bill Gates with a cheesy smile and two thumbs up.
The imagine how glorious it'll look on your 30" multi Monitor setup. *sigh*
/me looks at calendar
:D
No it's not april fools day...
This can't be serious guys, just imagine booting your laptop during some meeting (happens all the time), conference, whatever, and being unable to disable that sound. That would piss off so many people that just this would be reason enough to switch back to XP.
Nah, Microsoft is doing a good job of shooting themselves in the foot lately, but this is too much...I think Scobleizer is pulling our legs here
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
And I'd definitely avoid trying to flush it as an alternative.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Well, if people manage to change the boot/login screen of Windows XP, they're sure as hell gonna be able to locate the small bit of code relating to the startup sound.
Hell, I'd learn how to crack just to get rid of it. Personally I like Windows making no sound at all, no boot up sound, no shutdown sound, no bloody minimize or maximize sounds.
The only reason I'm considering getting Vista is because of DirectX 10. If any of you have seen the Crysis CryEngine videos you'll know why (Linky [video.google.com]).
Android Software Engineer
A computer feature that actually works? All the time?
Oh, well, there's a pretty good chance that Apple's switching to Intel CPUs and the associated hardware architecture will fix that and you'll get to enjoy the pleasure of full reboots a lot more often just as we fortunate PC owners do
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Wow, a joke nearly hit you!
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
If it's like the other 'system sounds' in Windows, they'll be recorded at full volume, unlike your music which is at -20 dB average. So you've got your computer connected to a nice sound system, you set your volume so the music (movie, etc.) is audible, and the system sounds will be loud enough to wake the dead.
At least the systems sounds can be shut off.
Please Microsoft, copy Apple's Sounds control panel which has a separate volume setting for system sounds.
Unless, of course, they tag it for WFP. That means, whenever you change it, Windows promptly changes it back and then displays a dialog telling you off for being such a naughty boy. In current versions of Windows, it's possible to disable WFP, but there's no particular reason why that should remain true.
They're currently talking about whether or not to do something like this.
Well, in the Mac side of life, it was a sign that the ROM had loaded properly, that the RAM test was successful, all that wonderful stuff that appears as text on BIOS-based computers. If one of the tests failed, then a different noise was heard.
Historically, the startup sound is due to the legacy of a bell or beeper being more reliable than a monitor. The beep was available as soon as power was turned on, but monitors had a few seconds until the tube warmed up, et cetera. The bell and later the speaker were more robust, so you knew the computer was running even if you didn't get a picture on the CRT screen.
I think if the startup sound in Vista is non-deactivatable, then the most likely cause is due to programmers capitulating at getting the sound controls activated before the sound starts, or because somebody insisted that since Microsoft payed some bigname composer to make this one sound, they want to make sure everybody hears it (maybe Jim Composer insisted upon it in his contract).
1, "I see you are using OpenOffice.org or StarOffice. Microsoft does not recommend the use of this software."
2, "We're sorry but your time credit to use Microsoft Word has expired. Please purchase additional
Microsoft Points to continue." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Points)
3. Your hardware vendor has made available an improved successor product to following system component in
your computer: Enrage Winforce 3000. Microsoft has been requested to disable the driver support of
this obsolete component. You have 13 days of operation left.
4. Your harddisk contents have been subpoenaed by an authorized entity: Ministry of Folklore and Culture of
the Republic of Bulgaria.
5. Your computer is about to access the internet on your behalf. Please thumbscan.
6. The DRM permission database has not been updated in 7 days. Please connect to the internet to continue
with playback.
7. The Department of Homeland Security has revoked your access to the internet.
8. How do you wish to pay for printing Microsoft Word documents? Select one of the following:
One month of unlimited access for 400 Microsoft Points
10 Microsoft Points per printed page
9. I see you have started Microsoft Word. Would you like to participate in a customer survey?
10. This mobile computer has detected a wireless computing device in your vicinity that has
not been registered with Microsoft.
computershave "forced" the start sounder for like 20 years and I have never seen a complaint, why is it ok for Apple and not for Windows?
Just stick an adapter (1/8" plug--1/4" jack would be good) into it. Pick one up at your local Radio Shack. Cheaper, less clumsy, and no noise whatsoever.
Chris Mattern
To be more precise, it is part of the Open Firmware. The word "Open" in Open Firmware doesn't mean the firmware is open source, but that it has an open API. Thus one can manipulate the firmware using this API without having to deal with a proprietary BIOS screen. E.g. the
command line tool on Mac OS X uses this API to manipulate settings of the firmware while the operating system is running.To disable the startup chime just execute
on the command line, e.g. in the Mac OS X Terminal application. StartupSound.prefPane and TinkerTool System use similar techniques to disable the startup chime.So the startup chime of the Open Firmware isn't mandatory, but it is not very well documented, how to disable it. From a sophisticated platform like the Mac, I would expect an easily accessible control in the system preferences, not some thirdpary add-ons or obscure acrobatic on the command line; but perhaps I'm just spoiled over the years with OS X.
Well, in the Mac side of life, it was a sign that the ROM had loaded properly, that the RAM test was successful, all that wonderful stuff that appears as text on BIOS-based computers. If one of the tests failed, then a different noise was heard.
This is not Mac-specific in the slightest. Historically, PCs did exactly the same. Beep once if the BIOS self-test succeeded; if there was an error, emit various other sequences of beeps to indicate what the problem was. They only stopped doing that when manufacturers stopped building speakers into the case.
However, that reason is quite irrelevant in this case, where the startup sound is apparently going to be played to tell you that the reason the computer is displaying a login screen is that it's ready for you to log in. That is to say, after the computer has finished booting, and long after the monitor has begun displaying useful information.
An optional sound makes sense in such a context, since some people find audio cues useful. A mandatory sound, with the inevitable backlash from hordes of enraged customers, is simply incomprehensible.
Just today I walked into the "Maximum Quiet Study Area" for our univerisity's library, and popped open my laptop and turned it on. My gkrellm instance sounded my "alert" sound (which is actually very rare, the load was too high from the boot apparently), and I rushed to hit the mute button.
The startup sound on Vista would be before any multimedia keys are registered if it's at all like XP is, and that wouldn't have worked. Laptop speakers don't have volume control!
Get yourself a bare 3.5mm jack plug connector to insert into the headphones socket. Then if you want to mute, just insert it into the socket and it will mute the main speakers and send the sound the headphones it thinks are connected to the connector.
There you go - never heard a startup sound since.
So apparently, whoever thought this up doesn't ever, ever, ever use their laptop/computer in:
1) Schools, Colleges, Universities
2) Offices
3) Libraries
4) Home use at night
5) Conferences
6) Broadcast applications
7) Confined areas (trains, planes, wifi hotspots, cafes)
8) With an amplifier
Apart from the obvious waste of MY money that I gave MS with my purchases, which they have spent to hire someone to make a sound that I don't want and will never want to hear (no matter what MS say), this is a mind-trick.
Soon, the execs will "realise" that their customers have concerns and provide an off switch, thus putting into people's minds that they "listen to their customers". They were thinking that all along, it's just another way for people to continue talking about Vista that they will "remedy" by the time it comes out. It stops people thinking "But is it secure, is it easy to use, is it cheap, is it compatible?" and instead make them think "Well, they solved the worst problem, that stupid startup sound can be turned off". I don't want an "experience" with an OS. I would want to get some work done. I don't want it all to be integrated and matching - I would want it to boot fast, get on the Internet securely and not get in my way.
I turn off ALL sounds, no matter what the OS. And I usually have my speakers off except when I'm anticipating an IM and have turned its notification sound on, or when I choose to have sound (DVD's, MP3's etc.).
This is what used to wind me up about Windows - I have little to no control over the OS without bundling it full of freeware to do the job. I don't WANT Adobe Acrobat pre-loading at startup - I use it on less than 5% of my boots. In order to GET ASKED whether I want it to happen or not I have to install things like Startup Monitor from www.mlin.net. And still Adobe insists on re-trying every time I update it. I don't WANT it to, ever, at all, in any way, but there's no option for that.
I don't WANT program X to access the Internet - at all, ever, under any circumstances. It might be a game that has absolutely no need to, or that I only use on the LAN, or it might be trying to act as a server all the time, thus giving me an instant security hole. But it's going to take until Vista for me to get a choice of whether or not I will allow it unless I install ZoneAlarm or something similar (which I've been using for this purpose for many years now).
I don't WANT program X to install itself under some silly subdirectory - I really don't. Program Files is possibly the worst organised folder on any Windows drive because everything that ends up there chooses it's own structure - by company name, by product name, by some weird abbreviation - I don't WANT that. I CAN and WILL choose where this stuff goes, given half a chance. I have systems that differ from the software authors idea for a good place... I have categories - Audio/Video, Internet, Games, Graphics, Hardware, Utilities, all of which I have a perfectly clear idea of what should be where - I can organise my start menu in this way but rarely do you get a choice of where a game sticks its icons. Even rarer is the program that lets you CHOOSE where you install on the hard drive.
I also WANT to be able to move any folder without breaking anything and having to regedit to fix it (if its possible to move it at all). I don't WANT My Documents or My Music or My Pictures or anything My, I have a perfectly well organised file structure myself and don't want every program creating a "My" directory and putting its stuff in there.
I don't WANT to have to use five-thousand user-land applications that all put an icon in my system tray that I cannot remove without breaking stuff, cannot hide without a load of freeware and do not ever WANT just to use a poxy mouse or a hotkey or a wifi card. I don't WANT stuff to Auto-Update without my say-so, no matter how important someone else deems it is - I will choose WHEN and WHAT updates I install after carefully readi
Here's a no shitter.
TIME: Post-9/11.
Location: Major Metropolitan airport
Me: I just purchased a new LT that was about 3 days new to me. Being on the road I didn't have much time to 'play' with it. I arrive at the airport, get my tickets and proceed to my terminal. I'm early. I decide to sit and have a look-see at what was preinstalled on my LT. I sit next to the check-in counter. I open windows explorer. yadda yadda yadda, I open the windows folder and find an executable named 'clock.avi.' I double-click it.
The face of a clock take up most of the screen. It begins to Beep. LOUDLY. The clock is counting down. From 10.
What really bugs me is that Scoble says he can "see both sides" of the issue. What kind of workplace culture does Microsoft have, where they'd even consider imposing such an obnoxious feature?
I'll guarantee they've contracted work to some "user experience" guru who says some crap about how sound is a more primal sense than sight, and that to properly brand Windows you have to associate it with a sound, and that this sound must always be associated with Windows.
Of course, what they haven't thought of is that you don't want to associate your OS with a reboot these days. So this might backfire on them.
I own an HP Pavilion. It has 3 distinct MPBs for volume (down, mute, up - in that order). However, they're software controlled. If I'm starting up and the windows sound plays I've got to wait until the load is done in order to change the volume. Very annoying.
(Wikipedia) An alternative modern usage of the word:
Defenestration has become popular as a term for switching from MS Windows to Linux or another operating system [5]. It is claimed that this usage originated in the University of Helsinki in the mid-1990s.
Steve Ball, Group Program manager: "...Windows Vista should present a common, and beautiful, face to the world."
Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer: (Paraphrased) "...Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate, Defenestrate."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This is another attempt of making PC as dumb as household appliances, ironically appliances are becoming more like PC's.
Windows is also becoming less friendly toward power users. I'll have to do my own windows setup script, or a program to do many things like: turn off useless GUI animations, destroy Accessibility, annihilate Windows themes, obliterate the menu delay, eradicate many useless windows services, turn off Auto Insert, Tab auto complete, and... Oh... there is more, I'll remember when I reinstall Windows. The stupid search needs a whole section: Turn off the stupid search dog, turn on advanced search, destroy windows zip support (there's no option to avoid searching into zip files), and search on all files when I write something on "containing text" (for example, it skips *.sql files!). I do miss the older search screen, if it hadn't a limitation on the number of entries found.
I always knew we would be using MS Bob against our will sooner or later!
It is like most modern audio equipment, you can't control the EQ, they just have stupid presets. It's about giving people less freedom, but that makes things easier to market and sell to most consumers. Maybe even makes it easier to translate, document and support. The iPod is a perfect example: simplicity sells.
He's then also saying you need a preset sound that can't be changed to realize your computer is on, and you won't hear this equally well with a custom sound that you've picked yourself. In what tragic accident did this guy lose his brain cells?
Good point. This is useful for a one-time startup sound indeed, or a sound you can keep on for as long as you wish yourself. When you're happy with your sound settings, you're then forced to keep it o... whaa, wait a minute, why is that? My sound effects are already OK, why should I keep hearing it? This can't be anything else than a cover up reason for the real object:
Make the Windows startup an annoying and enforced branding sound so people will hear "oh, this is Vista!"
Maybe a kind of cool thought the first 2 minutes or so of Vista user installs at a company or home, but hardly after 2 years.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
!!! all ebuilds that could satisfy "girlfriend" have been masked.
!!! possible candidates are:
- jen/girlfriend-1.1.3-r5 (masked by: ~taken)
- mary/girlfriend-1.1.3-r5 (masked by: ~uninterested)
- karen/girlfriend-1.1.3-r5 (masked by: ~uninterested)
!!! Error calculating dependencies. Please correct.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
The simplest way is to just mute the computer, now you would have had to do this before you shut down...it's not really an issue since Mac OSX users rarely need to re-boot.
No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
As a longtime Linux user I find the whole debate kind of funny. (Anti-flame disclaimer: I don't mean to 'should' or 'shouldn't' anyone regarding their choice of operating system.) It's kind of a stragne scenario, isn't it? In the end, Microsoft will probably put a checkbox in a Control Panel GUI that lets you turn off this sound, or even (if the marketing people can be distracted with something else for long enough) change the sound to something else. At the very least they'll have a Registry setting for it. But in the mean time there's a guy at Microsoft trying to make a decision about whether Windows users should be allowed to turn off a noise their computer makes. A pleasant-sounding noise, to be sure. But the decision is entirely in the hands of a person who, if the marketing people have strong enough control over Vista's brand image, might decide there's nothing Windows users should be allowed to do about it. Short of getting their hands very dirty with a hex editor, that is.
A very foreign idea to me. My current distribution of choice, Ubuntu, has some sounds enabled, and they do add to the brand image. And I do turn them off. And no one, not even the designers at Canonical, can ever tell me that I can't.
Your Mac will start up silently if you had it's volume muted before shutting it down or restarting it.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
I actually prefer it the other way around: Be quiet if nothing's wrong, and only beep at me if you have an error. Actually, that seems to be more common now, though some of my older PCs did beep if it POSTed successfully.
Now I have this weird newfangled motherboard that actually talks to me when there's an error. Scared the shit out of me the first time there was a keyboard error. It actually shouted "Keyboard not found!" at me or something like that.
would you imagine he would say "Please"?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
The "Your copy of Windows is pirate" would just make people laugh and brag about it. What they really need is a "Hello. I'm watching GAY PORN! MEN HAVING SEX WITH MEN! IN THE BUTT!" sound played extremely loud. They could blackmail people into actually buying legit copies, especially if they syngergized by incorporating text-to-speech technology with the search history saving functionality of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Genuine Advantage Automatic Updater and used the startup sounds to effectively communicate interesting search histories to anyone in the room. "Hello. I'm a pirated copy of Windows Vista. I was used to search WebMD for 'penile discharge' last night. Please contact Microsoft Legal Department in order to have your startup sound changed."
Hmm, I'm tempted to write a little proof of concept program for my own pirated copy just to see how it works... The hard part would be getting it to find the juicy stuff on its own.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Sam, I'm sure you'll remember Richard's laptop starting with 'Good Morning Vietnaaaaaam' every day... need I say more?
Matt.
I have no idea why no other brands do this, but having an actual volume control is extremely useful. I hardly ever touch windows' horrible software volume control and just leave it at maximum.
... no more getting an earsplitting jingle when your mail arrives because you set the volume to max on that movie you were playing.
Which is why Vista's volume control is actually useful - it can control volume per app (thanks to its new audio stack)
Go somewhere random
> I think if the startup sound in Vista is non-deactivatable, then the most likely cause is due to programmers capitulating at getting the sound controls activated before the sound starts
No, it's because someone at Microsoft wanted to make the audio bits part of the Vista 'experience'. The thinking behind making the sound compulsory is that most laptops and desktops are supposed to have hardware mute buttons (and most do -- except for some sorry-ass HP/Dell owners). What'll probably happen is that they'll add a registry/powertoy override in the end.
> or because somebody insisted that since Microsoft payed some bigname composer to make this one sound
Actually, they got Robert Fripp. And not just for the startup sound -- he's doing all the sounds in Vista.
Go somewhere random