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Rotating Welcome sound

One time it will play the flute, another time the piano. Windows can welcome you with a different welcome sound each time you start !

You don't believe me ? Look below to learn how to do this !

Note : The example pictures shown in this page have
been made with the French version of Windows 98.
Don't rely exactly on the display shown here.

Step #1 : Prepare a folder where to put sounds

First of all, you need to put all the sounds you will want to play in the same folder. The best to do is to create a short-name folder under C:\WINDOWS. In this example, the name is SND for Sounds.

So, the directory C:\WINDOWS\SND now exists on your computer.

Step #2 : Create sounds and put them in the folder

You may record your own wave files from micro, line input, or even Digital Audio-CD.You can do all this with a really nice sound editor, Cool Edit !

The best to do is to save your files in Microsoft ADPCM Wave file (.WAV) format. A sound quality of 22050 Hz, 8-bit and Mono is good enough for a welcome sound.

Save your sounds in .WAV format in the folder you have made, and give them numbers.

Example : SND01.BMP , SND02.BMP, SND03.BMP, etc...

Step #3 : Make your sounds rotate at startup

With Notepad or DOS editor, edit the C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file (this file is located at the root of your hard disk C:\ ) and add the following lines :

REN C:\WINDOWS\SND\SND01.BMP SNDXX.BMP
REN C:\WINDOWS\SND\SND02.BMP SND01.BMP
REN C:\WINDOWS\SND\SND03.BMP SND02.BMP
.
. etc
.
REN C:\WINDOWS\SND\SND10.BMP SND09.BMP
REN C:\WINDOWS\SND\SNDXX.BMP SND10.BMP

By renaming the file names, you can rotate them. Easy, isn't it ? Your AUTOEXEC.BAT file should then contain the above lines, if you typed everything correctly.

Step #4 : Setup the sound in the Windows Sound Properties

Go in the Control Panel, Sound, Windows Startup, and select the first file in the correct folder.