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Vista Startup Sound to be Mandatory?
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Aug 31, 2006 08:24 PM
from the any-sound-you-want-as-long-as-it's-this-one dept.
from the any-sound-you-want-as-long-as-it's-this-one dept.
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."
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that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
It'll be:
"Hello, This is Bill Gates and I pronounce Windows as Windows."
Parent
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello, This is Bill Gates, and I pronounce Windows as..." followed by sounds of Bill Gates rolling around in a giant pile of cash.
or, for anyone who's played Paranoia
"Trust the Computer. The Computer is your Friend. Not trusting the Computer is Treason..."
Parent
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Funny)
Yew got a purdy mouth. Who said siddown? Ahm'a make yew squeal like the wheels on mah chair... Ah! Luv! Dis! Cumpany!
Parent
Re:that's only the half of it (Score:5, Insightful)
If people knew what was in them they might object.
Parent
Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for MS (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Skip the window... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Funny)
Most Airlines frown upon things being thrown out the window in mid flight....
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, and remember that the best way to accelerate your Vista-based system is 9.8 m/s^2!
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Horrible idea, but thats par for the course for (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
How to turn it off.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How to turn it off.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I imagine it'll involve subtly hacking a grafted-on Windows 2000 version of NTOSKRNL.DLL while fending off the frothing-at-the-mouth system-file protection and changing HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SystemEnhan
Parent
Re:How to turn it off.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How to turn it off.. (Score:5, Informative)
In some cases, the fix is to simply delete the dllcache version - if what you're trying to do is delete the file. But there's also an added level of hackery for a subset of these protected files, because they're also redundantly backed up in a
So for files that are protected with this extra level, no, it's not really possible to change them via hex editor. I know that there used to be hacks in 2000 to disable WFP. I also know that in 2002, Microsoft did not have the expertise, in house, to answer a developer support question on WFP behavior (for a developer of BACKUP software - ie. "what happens if I restore the system to a previous version via backup software? - answer: nasty stuff. Which is why imaging software became a very popular way of backup and restore windows desktops).
No - I know that guys like Marc Russinovich probably have a much better understanding of how WFP works. But this is my understanding after having to deal with it. Frankly, in the past few years, when I've had to remove spyware and malware from systems, there's an eerie resemblance in self-protection techniques between WFP and malware.
Parent
What in the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Broadcasters will object (Score:5, Informative)
Bottom line (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bottom line (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, from a software design point of view, that's not necessarily the correct answer. If you make everything configurable that every user would possibly want to change, then you're looking at a UI that's going to be almost impossible to navigate, at least when you're talking about an OS the size of Vista. That said, I think this is a case where it should be something the user can change.
Parent
Re:Bottom line (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps... (Score:5, Funny)
It's my computer, let me silence it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Vista startup sound clip ought to be... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Don't do this (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)
Horrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Uh, Macs? (Score:5, Insightful)
"BAHHHH."
Re:Uh, Macs? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
reason 78 I won't be using Vista (Score:5, Funny)
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
The reasoning behind this is pathetic. (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Not thinking of mobile users (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is Windows turning to and why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
pirated version? (Score:5, Funny)
Bummer... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I hope this debate is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I hope this debate is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Copying the Mac again... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [macupdate.com]
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.
Parent
Re:Copying the Mac again... (Score:5, Informative)
It follows the software volume setting from when you turned off your Mac.
You can also mute it by holding F3 while booting your Mac, which on any Apple keyboard has the "mute speaker" icon, which is also how you mute the speaker in software.
There are also many free utilities that can disable it for you.
I suppose using Google to search for "mac startup sound mute" and hitting I'm feeling lucky was too hard. The result is pretty clear....
http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/mac_support/m
Parent
Re:Copying the Mac again... (Score:5, Funny)
I see you are new to Microsoft products. Your sig seems to state otherwise, but since you still seem to believe that your computer should work for you, rather than for Microsoft, you obviously have yet to experience any Microsoft product in action.
I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who has to experience Windows for the first time, especially if they are used to any other OS...
Parent
Re:Copying the Mac again... (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's similar to Vista then? You need to mute the computer in order to not hear the chine, and then un-mute it again?
I don't know about rest of you guys, but I find the Mac startup-chime _annoying_. And the user should be able to disable with zero hassle, and in such way that it does not affect rest of the system!
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