You can change your Windows Startup Sounds: Bored with your computer's same old sounds? Wanna be creative and change windows startup/shutdown sounds to your baby's laughter/giggle or burp. Or better yet,secretly tape your wife/husband singing in the shower and use it as your windows logon/startup sound. Or use your shrill wife's charade during one of her episodes! Here's how.

Tools you will need:

A. Audio editing software:

We'll be using a neat free software called Audacity for this tutorial. You can download it for free HERE. Note:You also can use any editing software you like - free or paid as long as it can convert the sound/music to Wav file format. The Method is the same.

B. Your chosen sound/music file:

Like your baby laughing/giggle or burping etc. You will be shown how to make it from scratch. Or If you like a sound/music track you already have in your collection you can skip to Step 2.

Step 1: Recording your sound/music:

i) Plug a microphone into your computer's microphone port.
ii) Open Audacity Software.
iii) When your source is ready to start recording press the 'Record' Button. See Image below.

iv) When you think you got enough sound at least for 8 secs after editing, press stop, then save the file giving a name(say Mybabysound1).(I say 8 seconds because that is the lenght of the XP startup sound. You can offcourse make it shorter or longer as you wish). The screen should look something like this image on the right.

Step 2: Editing your sound/music:

Note: If you already have the sound/music in a file, open it in Audacity. For those starting from step 1 it's already open.

i) Use the 'Play' and 'Pause' button to listen to the sounds. Identify which part of the sound you like to choose - say 8 to 16 seconds.Tip: If your sound is long, you may need to use the zoom-in, zoom-out button to see the waveform & time intervals.
ii) Delete the sound that comes before your chosen parts i.e. 0 to 7 seconds. To do this use the selection tool(see image below) and select the area from 0 to 7 seconds by clicking the right mouse button at 0 second, holding and dragging till 7 seconds and then release. Now press the 'Delete' button on your keyboard or use the 'Snip' button on the program(Scissor button).

iii) Now, Delete the sound remaining after your chosen parts i.e. 17 to the end using the same method.
iv) Recheck, if needed, by playing the edited parts. If not satisfied or you made a mistake, close the file without saving and reopen the file you saved in the beginning(Mybabysound1) and start editing again.
v) When you're sure you get what you wanted save the file by going to 'File' - 'Export As Wav' and name the file (say MybabySound2).

Step 3: Changing the Windows startup sounds/music:

i) Go to the folder where you save the file that you made(Mybabysound2). Rename the file to "Windows XP Startup.wav" i.e. Left-click on Mybabysound2.wav,click rename and then type "Windows XP Startup.wav" and press enter.
ii) Now go the the windows folder - My Computer - Local Disk(C:) - Windows - Media. Make a new folder(i.e. left-click on any empty area inside the folder - select 'New' - 'Folder') and name it 'WindowsStartup Backup'. Now drag the file "Windows XP Startup.wav", which is already there to the new folder you just made. Note: This creates a backup of your original windows startup sound so that if you ever wanted to restore it, you can simply put it back from 'WindowsStartup Backup' folder .
iii) Go to the folder where you had saved your edited sound. Copy the file "Windows XP Startup.wav" and paste it in the windows folder - My Computer - Local Disk(C:) - Windows - Media.
iv) That's it, you're done! Now restart your Computer and hear your own customized windows startup sound everytime you started your Computer.

Note: You can also change all the other windows sounds included in the Windows-Media folder using the same method. Just remember that you will get the best result if you keep the length and file format of the sound same as the original windows sound.