Microsoft ex-employee reveals canned Windows 8 startup sound but you likely already know it

While many users prefer to keep Windows' system sounds off, there is no denying that the sounds and tunes in it form a part of the overall Windows usage experience. And perhaps none can evoke the same feeling as the startup sound.

Microsoft probably feels the same too about startup sounds, which is why it has been brought back to Windows 11 after it went missing since Windows 8. However, an ex-employee, Jensen Harris, has unveiled that the Redmond giant never initially intended for such a thing as behind the scenes, the company had worked on and developed a startup sound for Windows 8 too since people had loved the previous Windows 7/Vista tune.

Harris served as the Director for user experience (UX) at Microsoft at the time, which meant he was pretty intimate with what was going on inside the company. In a YouTube video published yesterday, Harris has revealed what the Windows 8 sound was like. We have embedded the video below time-stamped, as it is only a couple of seconds long, but you can watch the entire thing too. Or, if you want to re-listen to it, simply refresh this article webpage.

If you feel a sense of déjà vu, you aren't wrong. Although Microsoft never shipped Windows 8 with this startup sound, it has been present inside Windows 10 and 11 as the logon sound. So you can listen to it simply by visiting “Media” folder inside “Windows” in your C: or system drive. The tune is named “Windows Logon”.