This sort of moves a bit outside the normal scope of Krimson News, but hey, Robert Fripp is the musician involved in the startup sound for the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. Today I called Steve Ball because I was curious about the many questions people have had about the Windows Vista startup sound. Steve was able to give me the the real deal on what’s going on and was able to clear up some questions I had.

• You will be able to mute the sound on your computer speakers or in the volume control panel, so that the sound does not play if you do not wish to hear it during cold-boot.

• Since the audio profile for that user will not have been loaded yet, if you try to mute the sound through the sound schemes “no sounds” setting in the Sound control panel in Windows, it will still play since the cold-boot sequence occurs before a user is logged on.

• The user sound profile will not contain the option to modify the startup sound since, again, it is not a user specific setting.

• They are currently assessing whether or not they will allow ability to programmatically disable (mute) the startup sound, however, if it is made possible, it will not be made possible via the control panel, rather via the registry or otherwise. Read: You will need to be a technical power user in order to make the change if it is possible.

He also made a good argument for why the sound should not be customizable as it is envisioned as a branding and a health check. IE: You know the computer is up and ready for you once this subtle sound plays. I personally like that idea. He also made the good point that many other devices we use every day, including many computers also use a startup sound which is not modifiable. You could look at computers from Apple, just about any gaming console, such as the PS2, XBox360, and many others electronic devices which all have startup sounds that exhibit exactly this same behavior: if you mute or turn down the device volume, you can completely control this sound .One other note: the new cold-boot sound will not be as loud and long as everyone seems to be worrying about. Those who wish for a comparison of how ‘intrusive’ this sound may be can listen to the length and level of the current “logoff” and new LUA sound that are both in the lastest beta builds.

Steve really wanted to express that they ARE reading feedback and listening to what the end users are saying as nothing has been finalized but said he’ll keep us updated. Thank you to Steve for giving the good info.

Here’s a quick link to the Robert Fripp recording session at Microsoft video over at Channel 9 for the Crimson tie in:

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