This is the startup sound coming with Windows 11

Jun 15, 2021 18:43 GMT  ·  By

The Windows startup sound is making a comeback in Windows 11, as the build that leaked today and which provides us with a closer look at the upcoming operating system also gives us the opportunity to listen to it before it launches later this year.

If you’ve been part of the Windows ecosystem for quite some time, there’s a chance you know that Microsoft removed the startup sound with the release of Windows 8, eventually launching Windows 10 without such a feature as well.

Jensen Harris, the former Director of Program Management for the Windows User Experience team, explained recently that giving up on the startup sound in Windows was a decision whose groundwork was laid after he avoided using his laptop because he wanted to avoid waking up his kid.

Listen to this new sound here

“I had an experience around this time with my MacBook Pro. It was late at night, we had a new baby, and it was my turn to get up in the middle of the night with her. I really wanted to start up my laptop to browse the web, but I couldn’t remember if the volume was muted or not. I realized that I had a 50-50 chance of pressing the power button and hearing that loud startup chime, waking up my sleeping wife and groggy infant, and that I had no way to control it,” Harris says.

“I opted to just keep my laptop closed rather than risk it. And at that moment, I had a flash of insight that having devices play a startup sound was a really bad feature for a device designed to be used in a person’s most private and intimate spaces at any time of the day or night.”

The startup sound is returning in Windows 11, and Tom Warren of The Verge has published it on Twitter, letting you listen to it in advance.

Windows 11 is projected to be announced on June 24 and then released to everybody in the fall.