Change Windows startup and shutdown sounds

Posted on May 14, 2008 at 5:22 am

I personally hate the default Windows startup and shutdown sounds, they are just plain loud and annoying! I changed mine a long time ago and since someone asked me how to do this recently, I thought I would go through the steps in order to change the Windows login and logoff sounds.

Interestingly, you can also change other sounds in Windows, such as the empty recycle bin sound, the new hardware insert sound, the error sound and lots more! You can take an MP3 of your favorite artist, convert it into WAV format and then use it to replace the default Windows sound.

You can use a freeware program like JetAudio to convert audio files into WAV format. The only thing you’ll need to keep in mind is that you want to keep the size of the file quite small, less than 500KB if possible. So you may need to first take an MP3 and cut out only the portion you want. You can use an audio editing program like Audacity to chop up the music.

Step 1: Find a song and convert it to WAV format. Try to keep the file size small, max at 1MB if you must.

Step 2: Now you need to rename these files to Windows XP Startup.wav and Windows XP Shutdown.wav respectively.

Step 3: Now we’ll go ahead and navigate to the folder with the current startup and shutdown Windows sounds. Go to My Computer and go to C:\Windows\Media. Here you will find the files Windows XP Startup.wav and Windows XP Shutdown.wav along with a bunch of other Windows sounds.

Go ahead and move the two original files from the Media folder to some other backup folder. This is just in case the two WAV files you created do not work and you want to revert back to the original sound.

Step 4: Now copy the two renamed files to the C:\Windows\Media folder and restart your computer! You should now hear the new music, songs, or sounds play rather than the default sound.

If you don’t like some of the other default Windows sounds, you can change them also in the same manner. Just create a file that is named the exact same as the one in the Media folder and then either replace it or move the original and then put in your new one!

Overall, it’s really simple to change the Windows login and logoff sounds, so it’s something most people will be able to do! Also, there’s no real way you can “harm” or “mess up” your computer. Enjoy! Source: TechnoSpot

[tags]change windows sounds, change windows startup sound, change windows sound, how to change windows startup sound, changing windows sounds[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

18 Responses to “Change Windows startup and shutdown sounds”

shitu said on : May 14th, 2008 at 6:13 am

I think there is no need of renaming or removing original file.

It can be done from control panel.Windows gives that option.You just need any wav file.

Marty said on : May 14th, 2008 at 6:55 am

Don’t encourage users to replace system files!?! The proper way to do this is open the control panel, launch the Sound applet, and on the Sounds tab you can highlight any Windows sound event and browse to your custom WAV files. Then save your scheme with the Save As button.

Colin said on : May 14th, 2008 at 7:04 am

Aseem, i noticed that you refreshed your site around 5:20 everyday. and i knowed that is the ET time.and i want to know what is your local time when you update the pages. thanks.
And this post will be more useful for computer rookie, and it may be interseting.

akishore said on : May 14th, 2008 at 9:13 am

Shitu, Marty – I’ve been doing things like this for so long that I forgot you can do it that way also! Yes that is definitely the safer way to change Windows sounds and I’ll update my post with the relevant steps for doing it that way! Thanks for pointing this out guys.

Colin, I am in the CST time zone, so one hour off.

Siddharth said on : May 14th, 2008 at 10:30 am

May be this is not a safer way but I like this one more Akshiore
I hav tried many a time with control panel applet but nothing happens but about a month b4 when I replaced the files it worked gr8
Now after formatting I am back to default bcoz my speakers are usually off :Mrgreen:

Steve Yu said on : May 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Never bother about that sounds. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

Haris said on : May 14th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

Thanks buddy! Never thought about that before. Now, I’ll put a clip of my fav song

akishore said on : May 14th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Siddharth, I’m glad you like this way better! I myself have not used the Control Panel method either!

Steve, yeah it’s only for those people who love to customize their Windows machines.

Haris, I have some crazy song on my computer that scares the crap out of my wife whenever the computer starts up! hahaha

Kitkat said on : May 15th, 2008 at 2:48 am

I have my speaker off anyway.

Techblissonline dot com said on : May 15th, 2008 at 4:37 am

yes I htoo have my speakers off by default

akishore said on : May 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am

Kitkat – hahahah Well then you definitely don’t need to do this!

einie1985 said on : May 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 am

Hi! I want to change my startup sound to a normal song. But when I change this mp3-file into wav, it takes over 15mb! and it’s only 25 seconds long… Why?

Do you know a program that can change format (to wav) without making the file SO big?

Hope that you can help me!

crack said on : April 11th, 2009 at 7:13 am

do any of you know how to change the windows shutdown sound length, so that it plays for longer? i swapped the default sound for another sound, but I want it to play for longer. How do you change the sound length so that it plays for longer? There has to be a way, I have a feeling it has something to do with the registry…you can do amazing things to your computer by tweaking your registry,

hit me back
pseudoeminem@yahoo.com

wguru said on : July 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm

These posts seem generically type cast for Windows as opposed to vista or xp. No biggy, but those that post should mention what system we’re dealing with (x86&64 means something as well.

As for “Windows Startup Sound.wav” (seen in vista & xp Windows/Media folders (at least for x86 systems), the tweaks are correctly referred to and moreover this forum’s post, correctly points users to control panel>sounds, but should disclose a seemingly necessary steps, those being at the Sound properties window, users go to the “sound” tab, then un-tick ‘play startup sound’ (not to worry it re-ticks itself after making changes), only thereafter use the browse button and make your changes, then click apply and re-boot.

One added note is that regardless that Windows oddly also calls ’startup sound’ and ’shutdown sound’ as ‘LogOn’ and LogOff’ sounds, when in all practicality once the ‘Startup & Shutdown’ files have been modified, it seems that at least for the Startup Sound (for vista x86) users must go the ’sound tab’ route (then choosing “LogOn” for the ‘Startup’ sound)).

And unlike ’startup sound’, for ’shutdown sound’, to get it to work (again at least for vista x86’s), all one really needs to do is swap out the original media folder’s “Windows Shutdown Sound.wav”).

happ-e-trails to all

wguru said on : July 21st, 2009 at 6:58 pm

I error’d saying ‘control>sound’ for ‘vista & xp’ because for xp, users can simply go direct to the media folder and swap any wav w/your own desired one.

I suppose there (for xp x86’s), it’s best to do it by going again to control panel>’sounds and audio devices’, then to sounds tab, etc.

wguru said on : July 21st, 2009 at 7:09 pm

But why I came here wa to try and find a post I once saw that addresses where in the registry one goes to tweak it so when at shutdowns, we don’t need to look at the (vista x86’s) opague/see thru window that tells us Windows is shutting down (and needlessly mentions ‘explorer’ is still running).

That annoyance is simply due to wherever ‘we’ change the shutdown wav to one that’s longer playing than the default one, and of course, windows ‘needs’ to tell us that explorer is still running (past the default time allowed for stock shutdown wav play time).

So I’m still looking for the reg key I need to change mine from something like a hexidecimal value of ‘0×000000060′ to, I’m guessing something like ‘0×000001200′ (for my some 20 secs wav).

Of course then, if ever any other programs are running at shutdown, I’duh not be then seeing that prompt telling me of a running program, but duh, I don’t care as I can always go to the event viewer and check that.

wguru said on : July 21st, 2009 at 7:18 pm

Maybe it’s one (or both) of the (ShutdownMajorThreshold_Sec) values seen here (on vista x86’s)…

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics\Performance\Shutdown

I could backup registry, try out changing the values, but I avoid potentially convoluting the registry.