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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.
Delete or Rename the file? or has that functionality not made it into the filesystem yet?
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 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.
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.
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 is NOT mandatory.
o pper/Startup%20Chime%20Stopper.html1 005165919533
Turn down your sound (in the OS X volume control), or mute your speakers.
Restart.
Tada! No startup sound.
There are also applications and Applescripts that will do it automatically for you:
http://alphaomega.software.free.fr/startupchimest
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2003
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16780
By the way, the Apple startup sound is more akin to the PC Bios Boot-Beep. It's a hardware test, and it will play a different sound if there is a video card failure or ram failure, something which prevents the system from reaching the GUI.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
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.
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.
You can always just hold down the mute button during boot and it won't make the noise (at least I think, it's been awhile since I last restarted). You then let go of the mute button and it will return you to your pre-determined volume level while it's finishing booting.
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?
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
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.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
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!
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.