MICROSOFT

Windows 8 boot sound was preserved for Windows 10 and 11

Former Microsoft Director of User Experience for Windows Jensen Harris talked about the Windows 8 boot sound that never came out. As it turned out, the recording of this melody was preserved in the system folders of Windows 10 and 11.

For decades, Microsoft has been creating unique boot tunes for different versions of Windows - a tradition that ended with Windows 8. It turns out that sound was also recorded for this system. Mr. Harris said that it was decided to get rid of the sound of the launch of the platform with the increasing popularity of laptops - so the company decided to actively promote mobile computers, including devices based on Arm processors. The developers simply decided not to distract users with strange sounds - for example, when you turn on a laptop in a cafe, they really don't need anything.

At some point, the top manager regretted the decision, but it was too late: the developers seriously optimized Windows 8, especially for Arm processors. All code that loaded the launcher into memory was removed, and even the code that initialized the sound stack at the beginning of the loading process. The startup tune would lead to a slower download and the amount of RAM used would increase.

The entry remained in Windows but was not used. Today it's on Windows 10 and 11 - this is a file called "Logon.wav", located in the "C:\windows\media" folder. There was also a special version for the Surface RT tablet, which differed from the original low note at first, but for Windows RT it was also decided to turn off the launch tune.

mundophone