Over the past few days there been some interesting news and outrage about Windows Vista’s Boot Up sound. I first learned of this outrage via CyberNet News, Vista Will Not Let You Disable the Startup Sound:

“Microsoft may not give me the option to disable the startup sound in Windows Vista though. Why would they do such a thing? Robert Scoble had the pleasure of talking with Steve Ball, program manager for the Windows Audio Video Excellence team, who gave a reason for this decision:

“A short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now conscious 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.” “

Then today on Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog, Debate over Windows Vista’s startup sound:

“For details, see Robert Scoble’s notes on his conversation with Steve Ball, Microsoft group program manager for Windows audio and video. According to the post, the purpose of making it unchangeable would be to help create a “spiritual side” to the Windows “branding experience” and to help people calibrate the volume on their computers at startup. Ball told Scoble that a final decision hasn’t been made, but he said that’s the current plan.”

There are several valid comments in regards to Todd Bishop’s Article, most have to do with using a Windows PC in a corporate environment. More so having to reboot for software updates or even if the freakin’ PC crashes. I never gave this much thought, even though on some days I have to reboot my Windows PC at work several times. The reason being, we don’t have speakers on our PC’s, if we want to listen to audio, we use head phones.