POLL: The definitive Microsoft Windows start-up sound poll

eno

1. Windows 95
2. Windows NT
3. Windows 3.1
4. Windows 98
5. Windows 2000
6. Windows Vista/7/8
7. Windows XP

This was fun!

Windows 95 as well

95/eno

The Vista startup sound was a collaboration among progressive rock guitarist Robert Fripp, record producer, musician and composer Tucker Martine and Microsoft's own engineer (and musician) Steve Ball.

In a blog post, Microsoft described the tune as having "two parallel melodies played in an intentional 'Win-dows Vis-ta' rhythm," with four chords — one for each color in the Windows flag.

Vista/7/8 has the great virtue of simplicity, as opposed to the striving grandiosity of most of them

i agree with crut's list

I must have started my Windows 98 PC 10,000 times (including crashes) and that sound barely evokes anything for me. Maybe it wasn't connected to speakers.

Very hard to judge these by aural criteria. They just make me think of the computer I had at the time. My XP computer was next to a sunny window and I made some good music on it, so that's the sound that makes me feel best.

XP
98
95

The rising 'ba ba baa' at the end of y2k is the worst. NT is hilarious.

Still cracks me up that the song they chose to promote win 95 had the lyric 'you make a grown man cry'.

95
nt
98
vista
2000
3.1
xp

i never had an nt install on any of my computers, so i missed that sound. how badass is that tho. its like you're turning on a spaceship. (95 is all time though)

XP for me, although, like Eyeball Kicks, I suspect this is less about the sound, and more about positive feelings toward the golden era of mid-2000s computing.

i associate the xp sound with the speaker/headphone volume being too loud and scaring me/hurting my ears. the best ones start quiet and get louder like 95.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2015/08/windows-startup-sounds-transformed-amazing-ambient-music/

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

totally XP

vista usually crashes before I get to the startup sound

Windows 2000 is pretty. My first laptop had it but I don't remember that sound at all.

3.1 sucks, just like the OS itself.

I like the vista sound! I'd never heard it before.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

TA DAAAAAAAAAAAAA

http://computersaresadtoo.tumblr.com/post/138362535171/xp98-remix