Microsoft Rant of the Day….

While putting in a dozen miles on the stationary bike, I was reading my blogs on my LG CU500, and found Robert Scoble’s post on the startup sound in Microsoft Vista. Apparently the plan for Vista is to have a mandatory, unchanging startup sound to greet you whenever you power on your computer.

All I can say is “WTF?” What is the rationale for dictating something to your users like this?

Scoble lists two reasons:

A spiritual side of the branding experience. A short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now concious 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. You won’t need to wait for your machine to startup, he says.

I have a different idea: how about working toward creating a system which you don’t need to wait for because it actually starts immediately when you power it on? You won’t need the short, brief, postive confirmation, you’ll just turn on your computer and start using it. That would be a positive branding experience.

Volume control in a Windows machine is a wild west. A mess. The startup sound is designed to help you calibrate or fix something that got out of wack when you startup your machine. Let’s say you muted your machine, and you don’t hear your startup sound, you know you aren’t ready to listen to stuff. The Xbox has a hard-wired startup sound. There is one way to mute it: to turn down the speakers that are connected to your Xbox. Same will be true for Windows Vista.

So, let me get this straight. You think that volume control is a mess, so your solution is to make it mandatory that someone experience a sound which is almost certainly set to the wrong level every single time they start their computer?.

I frequently use laptops in libraries or other public areas where all the beeps, startups and audio confirmations can be disturbing to the people around me. I use my laptop in my living room while watching TV with my wife (who often is typing on her own laptop). Mandatory sounds in that arena are also annoying.

But here’s the real thing: Scoble says “I can see this from both sides.” Well, that’s good, then the answer is really quite obvious:

You set the default startup sound to be something. You allow the user to change or disable it.

Honestly, is there even one user anywhere who asked you to choose a startup sound for them and hardwire it so you couldn’t turn it off? I understand how your market research guys might want you to do that, in some vain hope of creating “positive user experience”, but I’d hope that you’d do that by making a fast, robust, useful and even fun product. DIctating something even as trivial as this to your users simply to serve as advertising for yourself is just silly.

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9 thoughts on “Microsoft Rant of the Day….

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  2. Soren

    As happy as I otherwise am with my MacBook I’m a little annoyed that it goes “ponggggg” when it starts, disturbing everyone around my cube if I reboot at work. It’s not new behavior for Macs, but I wish there was a way to turn it off.

  3. Pingback: J. D. Harper: The Official Blog » Blog Archive » Please, Microsoft, Don’t Do This!

  4. Vie

    Person A: *Sniff Sniff* “Whats that HORIBBLE Smell!?”

    Person B: *Sniff* “Marketing Bullsh*t”

  5. Pingback: tongodeon: Disabling the Macintosh startup sound

  6. Pingback: The startup sound in Vista … « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger

  7. BREW Ninja

    I solved the start-up problem on the Mac by shutting down with the volume controls already low or off. It retains settings and doesn’t present a start-up sound unless it has an issue (which mine often does with the RAM unseating itself since it’s often in a bag that is jostling…running for the bus, walking around the office, the home, etc). And, thanks to my Toshiba have an analog volume control on the case, I can turn down all sound output at any time without having to wait for an OS to boot.

    I work in an environment where 70% of the workers use Macbook Pros and the other 20% are on Windows, with about 10% of those on Vista, the remaining 10% are on dual-boot with a combination of Linux/Windows XP/Vista. So, we’re used to our morning sounds, but I have yet to hear a Vista PC bootup anywhere on my floor. I could be wrong, but I think our IT specifically orders all new hardware to contain Windows XP because they don’t want to mess with the perils of Vista.

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