Why Windows Got Rid of Startup Sounds

**Dallas Taylor** (0:00)
You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.
What you just heard was a collection of all the Windows startup sounds from 1992 through 2009 If you used a Windows computer during that time, there's a good chance that one of those sounds triggered some serious nostalgia. Sonically, these startup sounds might seem like they're all over the place, but they make a lot more sense when you know the context around their creation. These little sounds are like snapshots in time. They can take us back to what Microsoft was thinking at key moments in their history. As explained in our last episode, it all started in the early 90s with Windows 3.1. That startup celebrated that Windows could actually play sound. With Windows 95, composer Brian Eno gently encouraged people to explore this new world. The next two sounds were very futuristic, as Microsoft showed off what these machines could really do.
Then, they went in the opposite direction, using orchestral sounds that made these devices feel friendly and familiar. With Windows 7, they returned to an electronic sound, but this time, it was softer and more approachable.
By the time Windows 7 launched in 2009, Microsoft had already started working on their next version, Windows 8 It was going to be a huge revamp, where they redesigned the operating system from the ground up. To go along with this, they wanted to take the startup sound in a new direction.

**Matthew Bennett** (2:01)
We did create one for Windows 8, and we tested it.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:05)
That's sound designer Matthew Bennett, who worked at Microsoft for over a decade. Matthew has always been a big fan of the sound that Brian Eno made for Windows 95

**Matthew Bennett** (2:16)
I think Eno was ahead of his time and pioneering this new paradigm of using miniature musical compositions, which he called micro music, to create these little moments, these little pools of time for people to enjoy.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:29)
With Windows 8, he wanted to take a similar approach.

**Matthew Bennett** (2:33)
In a way that was inspired by Eno's ambience textures, we were thinking definitely about getting something that was more ambient, but that was also more directly emotional.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:41)
So Matthew and the team got to work.

**Jensen Harris** (2:47)
We met every week for months at a time in this little conference room.

**Dallas Taylor** (2:54)
That's Jensen Harris, who was one of the people in charge of crafting the look and feel of Windows 8 Jensen remembers working with Matthew on the new startup sound.

**Jensen Harris** (3:02)
He would wheel in a little cart that had his computer and some nice speakers, and we would lock ourselves in this room, and we would play just sound after sound after sound. Almost like going to a vision test if you've ever needed to get glasses. And they say, what looks better, A or B?

**Dallas Taylor** (3:20)
Which one sounds better?

**Jensen Harris** (3:22)
Sound number one?
Sound number three? Or four?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:31)
Sound number five?

**Jensen Harris** (3:37)
And then it was tough enough sometimes to even remember what number one was when you've just heard number six.
But then we would sort of dig in. We'd say, well, this seems a little long. This seems a little bit fake. This one seems like it has promise, but could we do this to it? Could we add more environment? Could we make it breathier? Could we make it more melodic?
And we did that for months at a time.

**Dallas Taylor** (4:05)
Through this process, they developed a sound that they were both excited about.

**Jensen Harris** (4:09)
A couple of months passed, and we got to the final version of the Windows 8 startup sound.
And I really liked it. I really thought that it was great.

**Dallas Taylor** (4:24)
But all this time, there was something in the back of Jensen's mind that he couldn't quite shake, and it had to do with the way computers were being used. You see, in the 20 years since Windows 3.1 came out, when, where, and how people used computers had changed quite a bit. Back in the 90s, people would sit down at their desk, press the power button, and wait for their machine to boot up.
That process took a while, so part of the startup sound's job was to announce, hey, I'm ready to go.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:54)
Let's go.

**Dallas Taylor** (4:59)
But in 2005, laptops outsold desktop PCs for the first time ever. And with laptops, computer usage became more casual. It was something you might do on the couch, in a cafe, or even in bed.
It also meant that restarting your computer happened less and less. Instead of powering off, people would just close the lid and let their laptop go to sleep. When they did a full reboot, it was much faster than it was before. So booting up didn't really need a big fanfare. It was just a given.